Souvenirs
by Senri
Summary: When Zim left earth he took a few things to remember it by. This is it, kids.
1. Souvenirs

Zim took a few things to remember earth by, when he left.

He despised the planet still, but it had become a part of him: the air, the soil, the boy that challenged him. Earth was a compelling place for all its flaws. It was a planet where passions ran high: sex, violence, love, hate. People lived and died hard there. Humans hid their treasures.

In the end the dirtball had given its secrets to ZIM, though. Nothing resisted his might.

These were the things that remained of earth: A pair of glasses, cracked and with bent frames. A smooth leather trench coat that smelled faintly of oil and human sweat. A primitive human computer, clunky and slow compared to Irken technology. It was good for an ego boost, though.

Then there was one human.

These were the things that the Irken Empire would come to know earth by. These were also the things that had defined earth for ZIM.

Zim would put on the glasses sometimes, observing the way the thick lenses distorted the world. They made the stars outside seem bigger, like blazing fruits growing and withering, folded in the dark leaves of some ancient tree. He would slip into the trench coat, which was much too large for him; the sleeves fell over his hands to flop uselessly and the long folds of the coat covered his feet. When he tried to walk in it he stumbled. When he closed his eyes he could almost imagine he was back on earth, chasing and being chased, pressing his body into the shadows, waiting to pounce on the person that crept after him. The coat was a shadow. The boy who had worn it had been Zim's shadow.

When his thoughts reached that point he would rip the garment off, fold it clumsily and hastily and shove it back under his seat. The smooth hide was a little tattered now from the violence his claws wrought on it. The glasses had almost been destroyed once, in a fit of enraged frustration- how could anyone see clearly through those things? The problems of humans were stupid and their solutions were even worse.

Then there was the computer. Zim plugged it into the ship's mainframe every so often, flipping through the writings and pictures and stories carelessly. This was the second-most fascinating artifact: a window into the mind of one person, a view of barely contained despair, and excitement. And loneliness. Some of the things Zim found there almost made him feel pity and that enraged him as well: how dare a mere HUMAN presume to make an Irken Invader feel sympathy, or guilt, or anything? When Zim had arrived at the planet earth it had become HIS to do with as he pleased, with no emotion to cloud him. He resented that he couldn't free himself from slight guilt.

When these thoughts, when these traces of compassion came upon him he would rip the cables from the computer, screaming and kicking and tantruming with rage. The first time he had almost destroyed the primitive machine. Sometimes now he thought that if he had crushed the thing when he first found it the trip would have been better.

His last resort was to take an elevator down to the bowels of the ship, where the lights stained everything dull orange and tangled tubes festooned the walls. There, at the very back, throught a labyrinth of chambers and twisting passages, there was a freezing-cold room. When the door whooshed up into the ceiling to give entry into that room mist came creeping out. The air inside was crisp in Zim's lungs and the chill made his antennae prick. The cold refreshed him. Zim would have come there often except for the last specimen he had collected.

The sole occupant of this room slumped sleeping in a tube filled with gel. When Zim went close he could see a human outline through the tracework of frost on the glass; a nude, pale boy with closed eyes and a slack face. Coarse black hair sprouted from his head and his limbs were twiggy thin. It was so easy to think of crushing it's pale body right there, while the boy remained unconscious; dead to the world by Zim's hands. The alien wondered if his enemy dreamed. Surely he did; this human had always been a dreamer.

This was Zim's most fascinating artifact.

Sometimes Zim actually tapped his claws softly on the glass, and imagined the rapping amplified and becoming explosions in the other's subconscious, becoming a part of the boy's memories of battle.

Sometimes Zim stood close to the only computer console in the room, and ran his hands thoughtfully over the buttons and switches, thinking of letting the boy wake up, letting him out. Letting him see where he was now. Wondered if he would love it or hate it.

When that happened he raged and screamed and slammed his fists against the unbreakable glass and wondered that the other still had this power over him, even asleep. The human should have no influence, but his voice still stained Zim's mind, the passion in it. The crazy enthusiasm. The human in which Zim was reflected. The enemy he couldn't leave behind.

When the rage left him, as it usually did in the face of his enemy's helplessness, he would tap his claws against the glass again, gentler, thinking _Soon, Dib. Soon I'll wake you and you'll see starlight again._

And Zim wondered what he would do when the human woke up: if he would kill him or if he would love him. Or if they would kill each other.

And he wondered if Dib would maybe be happier if he was left to dream.

_Soon I'll decide._

END

_Err… I don't think that actually made much sense. At least it's properly-spelled nonsense…right? RIGHT?! Eheh. I have not abandoned Pact so don't worry; I just had this image in my head and wanted to get it out. Hopefully it's not a total waste of netspace._

June 6, 2004


	2. It's a Long Way Home

The stars were bright out here.

They were pretty, Gaz knew, when she took the time to look at them. But she usually wasn't looking- mostly now she lived inside her own head, rolling in her own darkness the thoughts of what she would do to Zim when she found him. As she would.

Tak's ship was cramped for a seventeen-year-old human female, even one who was as trim as Gaz. She had to fold her legs all the time to fit, crunched between food, drink and softly glowing, chirping computer equipment. For the rare hours when she emerged from the cockpit made humid and warm by her own body heat her legs thrummed with the rush of returning blood. As a passenger she looked almost incidental, only an organic afterthought scrunched between the unliving cargo. Freedom from the small metal cocoon was a rare release, spoiled by the girl's itch to on the move again. She stocked up on water or food or fuel as quickly as she could manage and all but ran back to her cramped quarters.

The ship did not want her there either. It had made this known when she had first crawled in, first reclined on the strangely curving seat, first dragged her hands over the controls that were furry with dust. "EUGH! _Another_ one of you stinking humans! Where are you all coming from?! Why are you BOTHERING _me_?!"

The backtalk had stopped soon enough, put off by Gaz's snarling replies. Gaz knew that she missed it, because Gaz was used to constant babble, had submerged herself in the tones of one voice for all the years of her life. She had no real natural inclination to be a lone wolf. Things had just sort of happened that way. The world was such a disappointment, and the girl had curled inwards upon herself, bought a world where things were predictable and she could have perfect control. That was her games.

And now the rest of the universe managed to let her down as well. Gaz couldn't think of what Dib had looked forward to finding out here; aliens were as rude and petty and carelessly cruel as humans.

It was not such a strange land after all.

The ship needed no help from her. Everything was automated; it avoided obstacles and traced after the beacon that was Zim's ship all on its own. Mostly Gaz slumped in her seat and brooded.

She thought often on her father, who was… gone now. Membrane had never given her the attention, the _consideration_ that she really craved but Gaz missed him all the same, missed the things that made him: how tall he was, his booming voice, the melodrama with which he talked of perfectly mundane objects. She remembered being very small, with purple hair up in two spiky pigtails, falling asleep during the long car ride home. Then, blurry and half-awake, feeling her father lifting her with his big, careful, scientist's hands to lean her head on his shoulder and carry her up to her room. Other kids had been a little scared of the lanky hero-figure that was her father, but Gaz was proud of him, of what he was doing. So proud.

That was when she had been four. It was the only time she could remember him carrying her to bed.

Gaz wanted earth back, wanted her games and her soda and her pizza and her family and her shuttered, perfectly controlled world to surround her again.

She knew she would never get it.

The last days on earth had been small and cold, spent in a reinforced bunker listening to the soft _whumphing_ of bombs on the earth above. Gaz had imagined sometimes that she could feel the earth shaking gently around her, with the soft, terrified tremors of an animal that knew the end was near. Then she had looked at a seismograph in the lab and realized that the shaking was real.

Gaz tried not to think of the fact that she was hideously alone out here, a speck of humanity lost in a hostile world. Gaz could out-hostile anything that crossed her path. Or so she told herself.

And she _knew_ that she could out-hostile Zim.

Gaz was just biding her time.

END

_Yeah, I said this was a one-shot but then I talked to J. Random Lurker and it SPROUTED. Horribly. So thank her for this. And this was a tedious, short chapter but there will be more to come, which will hopefully not be tedious. :)_

Thanks also to all of you who reviewed kindly.

Chapter finished July 3, 2004.


	3. Submerged

He was underwater, deep, where no light penetrated. Darkness and the pressure of a million tons of liquid pushed his limbs down and compressed his eyes into two hard diamonds. He couldn't move and he couldn't think. He wasn't even aware.

_Zim stood in front of a console, typing rapidly. He stood stock still, except every so often he quirked one huge red eye at the fat specimen tube that stretched from cold metal floor to cabled ceiling._

Things were changing in there. Invisible still, but changing.

Slowly, gently, light began to find his hooded eyes. It was soft but after so long in darkness it stabbed into his retinas like needles. It took an ice age to close his eyes; races rose and were destroyed in the time it took him to turn his face away. Still there was no coherency, no higher thought in his mind. There was only basic reflex, the kind that existed in the single-celled organism. It would take an eon for him to find himself again.

_Zim was impatient now. He hopped away, laid his claws against the polymer of the specimen tube, scratched away a little of the film of frost that spread across it. When he focused his MIGHTY eyes he could see a hand lying as limp as something dead._

His lips drew back in what might have been a grin and might have been a sneer. "Wake up, Dib," he said.

The light was rising faster now, and his body with it. Impulses twitched carefully along nerves; his body was wracked with tremors. He was so cold it burned.

Slowly his mind began to revive from its long sleep. It was still mute. It was unaware of its own name. But it was waking.

_The little alien paced in jerky restless circles. His claws were folded tightly behind his back. He was drawing in slowly, closer to the tube, until his shoulder dragged against the curved wall of it and he pulled away. He bounded to the console again, gave it a cursory glance, then screamed: "COMPUTER! Give me an estimate of how long it will take the DibSTINK to awaken!"_

The machine that ran the ship focused on it's master, relaying the question to the medical banks. "Umm… we think he should be coherent in about six hours…"

"WHAT?!" Zim screamed, fisting both hands and shaking them wildly. "Too long! Speed it up!"

"Err." The computer sounded a little wary now. "If we go too fast we might leave some parts damaged… are you sure?"

Zim screamed wildly, tore at his face in a momentary frenzy of rage. "FINE, FINE, FIIIINE!" A wait was preferable to inflicting damage on the Dib-beast. He had held himself back from this for months, he could wait six hours. He. Could. Wait.

Zim returned to his monotonous pacing. 

Dib remembered his name.

He was still dreaming, twitching, remembering, asleep. He was still cold. But now he had a name. Now he began to remember himself.

…it's winter and i'm so, so cold… sitting on the swings and i can't get warm… it's cold, somebody rescue me… i don't want to be here at skool today and i can't… i can't… i can't get warm…

…there's somebody else here, isn't there? or am i alone? please not alone…

…there is, there is, someone is here and he's laughing at me… can't escape…

…i'm just sitting here, why are you hurting me, i didn't do anything to you… hunched into my coat… it's cold…

…slush ball hits me in the face, melts, trickling down inside my collar, knocks me off the swing, it has rocks in it and one of them cuts me, COLD, so cold it hurts, stop it… you shouldn't be able to do this you shouldn't be here at all…

…just stop it. STOP IT. I SAID STOP IT.

His mind revolved slowly, coiling into a deeper, more peaceful sleep.

_A light flared on, a notice went off, peeping loudly. It grated on Zim's nerves, but then, everything grated on his nerves now. Irkens were not good at waiting._

"What is THAT?!" he roared. The computer responded instantly. It knew it's master well. If he were balked there was a 97% probability of him flying into a destructive rage.

"He moved into REM sleep for a minute. It was a nightmare; he's out of it now."

Zim hissed, dragged his tongue around his mouth, reptilian and totally evil. His eyes flared wickedly. "Good, good!" he cackled. The short alien prowled closer to the tube, brushed gloved hands over it in a way that was almost reverent. Then he SLAMMED them down.

"Hurry UP, Dib, hurry UP! ZIM is almost TIRED of waiting!"

The computer added a stimulant to the nutrient soup that fed Dib, and warmed the gel surrounding him by another degree. It kept it's misgivings to itself.

He was coming up faster now, could see light shining cold golden up above him. Dib was gaining on coherency now, stroking as fast as he could through water as thick as molasses. His limbs burned and tingled as movement forced warmth and blood through them. And he was still remembering. And he was still cold.

…Sitting in the skoolroom, feeling eyes drilling into the back of my head… came in late because I was sick last night and slept in today, stop staring, idiots…! Not like it never happened to you…

…Well, maybe it hasn't happened to you because you contracted some weird alien flu and were puking copious amounts of slightly glowing green mucous into the porcelain god until two in the morning…

…But you shouldn't nitpick.

…And how about this… the guy (?)… who gave it to me… isn't here either…

_Zim paced and paced and paced, booted feet giving off muffled clangs from the floor. He couldn't stand this wait. He returned again and again to stare through the crowded frost at the Dib, counting the tremors that ran through his thin limbs. This delay-! It drove him to distraction. It was such a long process. He could barely stand it._

Zim bounded to the tube again, propping his tiny body up on spider legs. Gently, gently, he wiped away the frost covering until he could see Dib's face and shoulders. The human's muscles were slack, his lower face covered with a breathing mask. Zim looked closer and closer until he could see Dib's eyes twitching back and forth under the closed lids. Then he sighed, scratching one claw down the polymer, down the bridge of Dib's nose.

He was awake, although he didn't know it.

Dib slitted his eyes open in the real world, just a hair. It was a move that was entirely unconscious. Fluid instantly rushed to press against his eyes and he closed them again, another reflex. Then he opened them fully.

This is what his dazed brain took in: a translucent blue haze across his vision. And through that, Zim's own face- his narrowed eyes, his spreading evil grin. The pointed light of computer consoles behind him. All blurred, as if it were seen through thick, warped glass.

Dib was not particularly afraid. He did not even believe that what he was seeing was real. He had had a string of nightmares like this for a week, once. He expected that this was one of them.

His eyes slipped closed.

_Zim noticed the flicker of Dib's lashes instantly and pushed his face closer, grinning wicked and wild. The boy's eyes parted just a little, and rolled to focus outwards. His pupils were huge and dark, and he SAW Zim, SAW his enemy. Zim was certain of that._

A million thoughts rushed through Zim's mind at once. Well HELLO Dib awake at last how do you feel? Comfortable I hope, or maybe not, you look a little stupid in there OH my mistake, you always do.

I hope you're scared. I hope you SEE what I can do to you now, what I COULD have done anytime during all those years on earth when we played. You life is IN MY HANDS, Dib. How do you feel…?

The human's eyes slipped closed.

Zim waited for a moment. Waited. Waited. Seconds ticked by, no, they crept by, like ants. The he recoiled with rage.

"COMPUTER! He's SLEEPING! Why is he SLEEPING?! HOW?! HOW?!" He spun in his anger, delivered a smashing kick to the wall. The computer tripped over itself to tell him.

"He's tired, under great mental strain, it took a lot out of him to come out of cold sleep-"

Zim was barely listening. He dragged his claws down the side of his face, raging. Words had been lost in his unintelligible roars. If the computer had had a living shell it would have cowered.

Dib slept easy in his gentle prison.

END OF CHAPTER THREE

_Okay… that turned out longer then I expected. Much longer. Dib was supposed to wake fully (yeah, we still have a bit of sleepy!Dib to go. M'sorry.) in one chapter but it didn't quite happen that way. I hope you enjoyed this nonetheless._

Chapter finished July 3, 2004.


	4. Tourist Traps

"PROXIMITY WARNING. APPROACHING FOODCOURTIA. Hey, earth SLUG, wake up and listen to me!"

Gaz mumbled softly and twitched, then rolled onto her side. She tried to stretch out her legs and tensed for an instant when they hit unyielding metal. Then she sat up stiffly, swiping a hand across her face to rub at her temples. "What did I say about the insults?" she growled. Her throat was raspy dry and tight with lack of moisture. The girl leaned down and pulled a bulb of water from the opened crate by her knees and sucked at it eagerly. She forced herself to put it down before it was empty, though.

The copy of Tak's personality was quiet for a moment, waiting for her passenger to speak again. When Gaz remained quiet the ship spoke instead. "Well how can I help it if you're an inferior _human_? I just state _fact_, filthy earth female."

_Not this routine again. Can't Irkens think of original insults?_ Gaz didn't take the bait. Instead she scrubbed tiredly at her pallid skin again. There were livid red marks tracked on her face from where she had smushed her face into folds of cloth as she slept. Tak had lapsed once more into expectant silence, and Gaz could almost feel the copy's impatience as the human left her hanging. "C'MON, what's wrong with you today?!" the ship finally exploded. "Are you dead or something? 'Cause, y'know, it's disgusting ENOUGH carrying your filthy meatbody ALIVE. If you're dead I'll just jettison cargo and go do... stuff."

"Sorry to disappoint you," Gaz growled in return. "What's going on that's so important it made you wake me up?"

"Ex_cuse_ me," the ship sniffed. "I was just _saying_ we're getting close to Foodcourtia, the-"

"Food court planet, I can guess." Gaz snapped. She pulled a little bit of string from her hair; greasy plum strands cascaded around her face until she pulled them back into a tight tail again. "Land there. I could use a change of diet." She smirked ruefully at the crates that were filled -or that had once been filled- with tubes of bland nutrient paste. She was getting dangerously low on stocks of food and water.

"There's something else you might be interested in," the ship said. Tak sounded gleeful, as if she were barely restraining herself from bursting into wicked laughter. Gaz looked up a little bit, her face remaining stony. She had a hunch that the ship had some way to monitor her expressions and body language and tried not to give it an advantage in that field. Even a copy of Tak was far more dangerous than Zim.

Instead, the girl remained silent. It was what she was good at, and it was a far more effective tool for getting information than ranting and demanding answers would have been. Irkens seemed to love to explain their thought process in detail- or was it just Zim and Tak who fell prey to that? Either way it worked in Gaz's favor when she played waiting games.

The ship did not disappoint. After a few slack moments it spoke again. "Zim was here once, not so long ago. He worked here before he escaped and showed up to ruin Operation Impending Doom 2."

"Oh?"

"Oh _yes_," the ship snickered. "And the fool! He left an angry Irken _restaurant manager_ behind him! There is no other who would be idiotic enough to _dare_!"

Gaz tapped her fingers together thoughtfully, wishing she had her Game Slave. She needed _something_ to occupy her hands. The ship was banking now; Gaz wiped condensation from the cockpit's window and glared down upon the dubious glory of Foodcourtia.

_A dilapidated, ugly planet. Just like all the other ones. Surprise, surprise._ Gaz narrowed her eyes disgustedly. _I should be used to this by now..._

The human girl slumped, stretched her arms up as best she could to crack her back. The surface features of Foodcourtia were easier to see now, as the Spittle Runner slid into the atmosphere: an ugly metropolitan stretch of fast food joint after fast food joint. Food wrappers whirled away from the Runner as it landed, then drifted back to the cracked paving as the gusts of superheated air blasting from the thrusters died down. The lot was less crowded than she expected.

Gaz dropped onto the scorched concrete rather clumsily, bending over to massage life back into her knotted calves and thighs. That done the girl swung her arms over her head to stretch her shoulders and roll her neck. After crushing hours of travel cooped up in the Spittle Runner and chance to move freely was a gift.

The Runner dropped a lift bearing an ID plug and monies card; Gaz pocketed both of them without turning a hair. Then, falling into her habitual borderline-threatening prowl she stalked towards the restaurant.

It was a dingy, half-empty little building. A tiny, whimpering creature in a hideous suit flailed in pain next to the door. Gaz stepped over one twitching limb and took stock of the place.

Cramped, greasy little booths lined the walls and went in rows down the center. A bored female Irken manning the counter said in a sulky slur "Welcome to Schloogorgh's Flavor Monster may I take your order please?"

Gaz slammed her palms onto the counter. She stood head and shoulders over the little alien. Murky corners seemed to shift, invertebrate and ominous- the few patrons picking at their meals all tensed and turned to stare at the new arrival. "I don't have an order," Gaz said, perfectly conversational. "I'm looking for an Irken called Sizz-Lorr."

The much-abused counter Irken almost shrank back at the sudden invasion of her personal space. Normally they were pugnacious little things but those unfortunates landing in the fast-food industry tended to lose much of their spark. However as the strange customer made no further signs of aggression the server warily spoke.

"Sizz-Lorr works the fryers in the back. He'll be" –she pointed- "through that door." Normally customers weren't allowed behind the scenes (it put them off fast-food forever) but it might offer some satisfaction at knowing the Frycook would take care up the uppity outsider.

_Well, that was easy._ Gaz nodded shortly to the worker and slouched towards the back, where a little door marked with an employee's-only sign was tucked.

It swung open easily at her touch, and Gaz slipped in side, closing it silently behind her. The kitchen was practically deserted. Only a few of the fryers were active, spitting off bits of hot grease. The lights were dim, but Gaz could see a hulking figure moving in the back and made for that.

Sizz-Lorr was the most intimidating Irken the girl had ever seen. She paused a moment just to stare at his blocky armored shoulders. The Frycook was wider than he was tall, and he was very tall.

The next moment he turned and saw her. Sizz-Lorr was balancing a steaming pastry precariously on an oversized spatula; that was probably the only thing that kept him from bringing the utensil crashing down on the impertinent intruder. Instead he simply growled, forehead wrinkling angrily. The scar above his eye twitched with the movement. "What are you doing back here? The sign said employees only. Are your brains deficient?"

Gaz dipped her chin down to her chest, then leaned back casually against a freezer unit. Shadows surrounding them shimmied closer, rippling eagerly. Sizz-Lorr didn't shift his weight but his eyes narrowed. The Frycook was not a stupid Irken and he knew when to give an apparently stupid alien the benefit of doubt.

"I was told that once, and Irken called Zim worked here," Gaz murmured softly. "Do you know where he is now?"

Sizz-Lorr's lip curled with disgust. "Ah, _Zim._" He swept his spatula neatly over Gaz's head, shaking the sweet cake onto a slide. Not a drop of grease got on her. The threat in his movement had decreased now; he had recognized Gaz as a creature somewhat on par with himself, another predator in disguise. "He worked here once, then he escaped to enroll in Operation Impending Doom 2." Now the bulky Irken leaned on his spatula. The metal shone with a rainbow slick of grease. "After that, he was missing for a while. I found him on a planet called... earth, and brought him back to make up for his laziness. But he managed to escape again before the Foodening started."

That was a new phrase to Gaz. "The Foodening?"

Sizz-Lorr shot her a sardonic glance. "Yes. Every so often it happens that there is such a press of customers arriving here at Foodcourtia that it becomes impossible to leave. It will be only one year off planet but here it takes twenty years to pass." He flipped his spatula into his hand and coaxed another pastry onto the metal, pouched purple eyes concentrated. "It would still be going on but there was an outbreak of Inginano Fever in one of the restaurants. It spread of course, and people all started trying to leave." He shuddered in a momentary spasm of rage. "I would hunt Zim again but the fools here would fall apart without me!"

Gaz nodded thoughtfully, hardly listening to him. The cook would be no help at finding Zim but he could provide food and water.

"I am hunting him," she interjected through Sizz-Lorr's feverish mutters. "I plan to find him. But I need supplies. I am low on water and basic food."

Sizz-Lorr withdrew from his own world to look at her again. And ugly grin pulled at his face. "I can help you with that," he said.

END OF CHAPTER FOUR

_The premature end of the Foodening is iffy but the idea of the Foodening is iffy in the first place so forgive me. Is there too much exposition in this chapter? You tell me. More fun stuff will erupt soon._

_Chapter finished August 22, 2004._


	5. That Flaw

Everything glowed warm around him. Dib basked in the heat, hardly aware of where his body ended. His eyes were closed, his face was slack; total relaxation, total _vulnerability_, caught deep in the throes of animal comfort.

He was only half-awake. Partly the pale boy could recall icy cold and shivers that wracked his body, and pain that tore at his flesh, but that was gone now, submerged in mental white noise and lassitude.

The human bobbed lazily, head drooping. His limbs undulated slightly in the thin, warm fluid surrounding him. One of his arms twitched up, maybe to touch his face or rub his eyes. Spidery thin fingers gently bumped into a smooth, curving wall.

Dib snapped awake in record time.

Fluid rushed to press against his open eyes; it was a harsh orange color and it distorted everything in his field of vision. It was almost amniotic; his lungs pulled it in and expelled it with only a little more effort than it would take to breathe air. The warmth of it infused his lungs and spread to his body, nourishing him somehow. Wires stretched cobweb thin to his limbs and met needles that plugged black into his flesh.

Dib squirmed as much as he could, thrashing weakly in the pale strong shroud. His hands scrabbled ineffectively against the inorganic womb that held him close. The boy was hyperventilating, ignoring pain that blossomed in his chest and stomach. He kicked as much as he could, and moved only a little. The tube he was in curved close around him and kept his body from tipping horizontal... while also preventing him from much movement.

Eventually he stopped, exhausted. After months of inactivity even in cold sleep Dib's muscles had atrophied and couldn't support much exertion. The boy sucked the thin liquid deep and looked out, blinking often. The fluid was an uncomfortable, invasive push on his eyes that couldn't be gotten rid of. Dib could feel it pushing him back down too; back into a murky hole in his mind where he would lie totally unaware and unable to prevent attack. He fought the impulse, clawing his way back up from that sheer chasm.

The human shook his head jerkily, doing his best to focus. There was something funny with his eyes; they wouldn't make things go straight. There was mossy fuzz grown on everything he could see, computer cables and blinking lights churning messily together. Dib squinted until pain jabbed behind his eyes. His heart thumped painfully in his chest and he swore he could hear each panicked beat.

_Thoom._

The noise rumbled through Dib's entire body. The human jerked with surprise. For a moment he almost thought he was hearing his own strained heart, and then he could feel vibration on his skin. The noise was all-encompassing and loud and it _hurt_.

_Thoom_.

Dib twitched again. Needles were suddenly withdrawing, leaving dimpled tracks down his pale arms. The flimsy tubes were pulling up and away, leaving him free-floating. The boy looked down and Zim was there, looking up. _How did I miss him in the first place?_

_Thoom._

The alien tapped the glass again. When he saw that Dib was aware of him he grinned and gave the human a little wave, then scratched one claw down the tube. It made a high dog-whistle shrilling that reverberated in Dib's brain and jaw.

"_Stop it!"_ Dib yelled, or tried to. The liquid morphed his words into thumping increments of sound. Zim cocked his head, perplexed, one eye quirking oddly. His mouth moved but Dib had no way to hear him.

One last tap and the tiny Invader turned away. Dib struggled again, scratching fruitlessly at the tube's wall, furious. _Don't you DARE just leave me here, Zim!_ The boy kicked but there was no way to resist.

Slats opened in the bottom of the cylinder and the thin orange fluid began to drain. Dib sank gradually, and when his head cleared the liquid's sloppy surface he sucked air in clumsily, puking thin orange goo as his lungs and nose emptied themselves of the stuff. It dripped from his nose and Dib slumped down, leaning against the curved polymer wall. He could taste chemicals thick on his tongue.

Dib couldn't believe how weak he felt without the amniotic soup supporting his weight for him. It was an effort to get back into the habit of standing straight, and just as he was beginning to manage it the tube whooshed up into the ceiling. The boy fell clumsily, twitching with the sudden chill that bit him. Before he hit the floor something grabbed him, hands catching under his arms. Then he was lowered carefully. The human just tried to take it all in.

Zim's face was suddenly, uncomfortably close to his. Dib flinched back but his rival caught him by the ears and studied his face meticulously. His features were blurry and the human squinted, trying to bring him into focus.

Zim watched him for moment, taking in the difficulty Dib was facing when he tried to see. "Computer! There's something wrong with his eyes!" the alien snapped, letting Dib's head drop back to the metal.

"Well, duh," the machine groused back. "We knew that. He's farsighted and you're too close for him to see you clearly. Plus, um, some frost damage to his corneas and optic nerves. Remember?"

Zim paused for an instant. "Ah. Yes. Of COURSE Zim remembers!" Then his gaze shot back to the human. Dib pushed himself up on his elbows, taking in his surroundings and beginning to shake from a mix of shock and fear. This was definitely Irken technology he was surrounded by. He was naked, alone except for Zim, in the middle of hostile territory. With eye damage. It was a nightmare.

"Hello _Dib_," Zim said smoothly, goose-stepping closer to stand above the human. He swept a clinical look over Dib, from head to foot, and the human felt a slow tide of nausea rise from his stomach. He clenched his hands into fists so they wouldn't tremble, and pushed himself up to a sitting position. His skin was still limned with bright orange, but the fluid was drying now into a thin sheet, with pieces flaking off like residue from hideously bad sunburn.

"What's wrong with my eyes?" Dib asked sullenly. He hated it but for now Zim was his only source of information and he would have to trust that the alien wouldn't seriously hurt him. This dependency on his enemy sickened the human but it was a thing he knew he had to deal with, and as such he steeled himself as best he could against Zim's arrogance and cruelty.

"Oh, NOTHING that a stinkbeast like yourself needs to be concerned with," Zim said loftily. His expression was blithe. "Just a few SETBACKS caused by exterior circumstances. Nanites repair the damage as we speak." He pulled something from his pak and Dib stiffened, although he didn't know what he would do if it was a weapon. Red light flashed on glass and then Zim was settling Dib's glasses on his face, a peculiar mercy. The human jumped from his touch anyway.

The glasses were an old prescription and there was a crack webbed across one lens but they were better than nothing. Oddly Dib felt more secure even with only them. It was one layer of his shielding against the world back in place, and one layer was better than nothing.

With that the human felt more confident, enough to have a try at confronting the alien. Zim already seemed to have tuned him out; the Invader was humming and staring off into space with a smirk. His gloved hands were clasped neatly behind his back and he swayed a bit. When Dib shifted to a crouch he snapped out of it and looked inquiringly at the human, one antennae flexing.

"Why am I HERE, _Zim?_" Dib demanded, making his voice as firm as he could. It was hard when he wanted to hug himself and shiver in the cool filtered air. _And where is HERE, anyway? Must be his floating base..._

His rival gave him another funny look. "Forgetful DIB! Could your weak human BRAIN not STOMACH the stress of cold sleep?" The alien marched briskly around his rival, checking the human for further damage. A redundant act but Zim's bursting energy required some outlet. It would have worked better if Dib hadn't turned with him, eyes wary. "ZIM magnanimously RESCUED you from the RIGORS of your silly human WAR! I thought that perhaps my most capable enemy would deserve a better end than" –he waved a contemptuous hand- "a primitive human projectile weapon. Or something." He shot Dib an expectant look and a pleased grin. The human just stared at him blankly.

"...Give me some clothes, Zim." Dib said wearily. This was just too much to take in. He reached up to massage at his temples, already feeling the beginnings of a headache. "I want some clothes."

Zim gave him a slightly affronted look. "You make demands of ZIM?! ZIM, who has saved your unworthy LIFE?! You should be grateful!" His face snapped into a grin, pleased by his own brilliance. "Yes! Show gratitude to Zim!"

_Oh, come on._ Already the whole stupid situation was a mess. _I just want to go home._ "Look," Dib started, irritably, "thanks and all" –there was no way to avoid saying that, now that Zim had his heart set on hearing it- "but now let me back to earth. Give me clothes and let me back."

"NOT GOOD ENOUGH!" The alien glowered. "Zim deserves _more _than mere apathetic thanks! As PENANCE for your lack of ENTHUSIASM, you shall GROVEL before Zim! Yes! GROVEL!" He pointed an expectant finger at the floor in front of him.

_This just gets better and better._ "ZIM," Dib snapped, his voice strangled with irritation. He paused a moment to collect himself. "Look, _Zim_, I'd be happier if I wasn't helpless and naked! I just want to go _home_, okay?! Is that too much to ASK?!"

Zim dropped his hand, red eyes flaming. Dib had thrown a wrench in his carefully scripted conversation already. The alien started to say something, paused, closed his mouth, then chuckled, little and nasty. "Oh, I guess I _forgot_ to tell you, Dib. We're _months_ out from earth. You are at my MERCY!" He threw back his head and laughed fully, horribly. That would teach the human to make demands. Dib felt his stomach drop into his feet. "Now! If you knew what was good for you, you would present Zim with appreciation!"

"You _jerk_," Dib snarled, loathing his rival. "You _took me from my planet _and you _stole my life_ and now you won't even give me my _pants!_" He needed something else. He needed to say something else or he would start screaming and never stop. "I _hate_ you."

Zim snarled, mouth drawing back angrily. He grabbed Dib around the throat, dragged the resisting human to his feet, unfolding his spider legs as he did so. Dib let his own weight fight for him against the alien's grip. When the human was standing Zim released him for just a second, then slammed open palms against Dib's thin chest in a brutal shove. The pale boy staggered back, clumsy and weak. "_Stupid_ human!" Shove. "_Hideous _filth-spawned child!" Shove. Dib scrabbled and swayed, trying not to fall. "Zim _saves_ your ungrateful _life_ and all you can do is mewl for _clothing!"_ SHOVE. Dib's back met the cold metal wall; he was arched painfully over a computer console with Zim's claws around his throat. "THANK ZIM!" the alien screamed in his rival's face. "THANK him, and do it NOW!"

Dib glared back, hate glittering with pained tears in his eyes. He made himself _smirk_ at Zim; knew it would get under the Invader's skin. "I _hate_ you," he whispered, low and personal. _"Hate _you."

Zim glared savagely. He freed one hand, brought it down in a nasty slap across Dib's face. His claws left thin lines of red. "THANK ME!"

"I _hate _you!"

SMACK. "THANK ME!"

"I _hate _you!"

SMACK. Dib's nose was bleeding now; the boy stuck out his tongue a little to lick the slick red juice off his upper lip. Zim wasn't shouting anymore; he was hitting Dib just because he liked it, liked knowing he could tear the human to pieces. Liked hating him back.

Dib whipped an arm around Zim's head, pulled their faces closer. Zim didn't care except it gave him less room to swing his arm and get in good slaps. "I'll always _hate_ you," Dib breathed, almost into Zim's mouth. Then he curled long fingers around Zim's rubbery, sensitive antennae and _wrenched._

It got the screaming Invader off him. Zim howled, eyes mere slits of bloody red. Dib lurched away from the wall, panting. His body jittered with pointless adrenaline. There was nowhere to run and nothing to fight with.

Zim tackled him and the human fell backwards. His head met floor with a dull clang, stars going nova in his head. The spider legs whipped close around them; Dib could feel the slender, deadly point of one settle against his jugular, wobbling with his hammer pulse. Zim's knees were grinding into his stomach and the human couldn't breathe. "I'm turning you over to scientists," Zim hissed. "They'll torture you. Kill you slowly. I'll probably get to _watch_."

"That's all you'll ever get," the boy snarled back. "You pathetic excuse for a conqueror. You couldn't even beat one _human_ in seven _years._"

Zim grabbed two hanks of black hair, shoving Dib's head down hard. The alien opened his hands, slid his thumbs carefully under the lenses of Dib's glasses, knocking the vision-crutches further down the boy's nose. Pushed his claws against the human's thin eyelids. "What's happened here, then?" he whispered. "You think you have a VICTORY with this, DIB-STINK?! HUH?!" He put pressure on his thumbs, just a little. Only letting Dib know that if Zim felt like it, the human's sight would be GONE in a second. Not just damaged. Bright red drops popped up around the fine tips of his claws- that was far enough.

Zim moved his hands away, point made. Rage clogged his throat. Dib's eyes slid back open, but the alien could tell that he had gone somewhere else; that his mind was free, drifting far far away.

The tiny Invader pushed himself up, stepped back to toe Dib in the side a little with his boot. "You wanna fight still, HUMAN?" he said. "Maybe lose to Zim AGAIN?" There was no response from the boy. Zim knew Dib's body language and could see he was awake- his rival was simply IGNORING him. It wouldn't be a win until the Dib acknowledged it as one.

Zim kicked him again. "Are you GIVING UP? After all that SHOW?"

And there was still no response. Dib just flopped there breathing, not paying any ATTENTION to his enemy. Zim ground his teeth furiously. "HEY! You will LOOK at Zim when he is TALKING to you!"

No response. The alien clenched his hands furiously, opened them again, clenched them, opened them. He searched for something to say, something really good to throw Dib down, rub his defeat in his face. There was nothing there. _...wasn't supposed to happen this way... stupid human, you should THANK Zim for his effort given on your behalf..._

Instead he had to get out of here. Zim knew he had to remove the human before Dib provoked him further and made his rival kill him. The earth boy was needed, after all. Zim had to present the scientists with a healthy specimen for analysis and the Dib was damaged already from cold sleep... If he killed the human now it would be an infringement on the procedure established after breaking down a planet.

"Computer!" Zim barked, decision made. "Take the Dib-human and restrain him in the medical labs! Fix his eyes and make him healthy for presentation to the Tallest."

Thick cables whipped and wormed their ways down from the ceiling. One of them hooked the Dib around his back and under his arms then dragged him up to droop down. Others constricted snugly around the human's body, not hurting him but not taking any measures to insure comfort either.

Zim looked disgustedly at his now docile captive. _Somehow I expected more from you, Dib..._ But then, the other was only a smeet after all. A human smeet at that. Contempt mingled with pity welled up in the alien again but he suppressed it with a snarl. "I'll leave you to _contemplate_ your hideous _fate,_ Dib," he snapped. "We will speak more on this _later_." He sought Dib's eyes, wanting one last look at the boy's soul. _This isn't over, human. I rule here and this is not over until my decree._

There was still no response. Dib's gaze went over his enemy's shoulder, terminating in some distant point that was only accessible to him.

A teleport beam washed over the human and he flickered away. Zim stood still for a long time, glaring at nothing.

END OF CHAPTER 5

_Criticism is appreciated. I hope you enjoyed the chapter._

_Unrealistic: Dib doesn't have amnesia- what he was suffering from was more like an amplified form of the disorientation that people sometimes experience when waking from a deep sleep. You know, "where am I, what's going on," and the like._

_School is starting for me so expect production to slow majorly. My apologies..._

_September 6, 2004._


	6. Home Sweet Home

Water was the greatest gift Sizz-Lorr gave her. He had handled the packets carefully, reasonable as to him the substance was a corrosive substance rather then something that sustained life. Gaz drank three bulbs in quick succession, feeling energy flow back into her heavy limbs with relief. The water softened her dry tongue and she flicked it idly over her cracked lips. There was a slight taste of copper on them; they were still so dry they were bleeding.

Sizz-Lorr had presented her with a basket of some greasy, fried, otherwise unidentifiable food; for all she knew they were bits of meat of vegetable or carefully selected pieces of hose rubber disguised in breading. They tasted like salt and grease, like meals from innumerable fast-food joints back home.

She took another piece and put it into her mouth, relishing the bitter taste of the salt. A bit of it had brushed into one of the sores on her lower lip and stung fiercely, interminably, before the human girl hurriedly pressed her tongue over it, hoping to flush away the salt with saliva.

It didn't quite work and Gaz squeezed her fingers together, bearing the pain as it sank deeper and deeper into her flesh and then dissipated slowly. After that she gave up on eating the greasy pieces of food- it was far too rich after her spartan diet of nutrient paste which had been held to for months. Instead she settled back into her seat, affecting a casual air and luxuriating in the feel of clean clothes on clean skin. The cuff of one of her sleeves was a frayed mess and Gaz picked at one string idly, unraveling it further. When it hung from her elbow she left it alone, preferring to sit back and inhale the wafting scents of grease and dirt, listen to the faint hiss and spit of the deep-fat fryer, letting the familiar sounds and atmosphere put her back home. It was hardly a stretch to imagine Dib in place beside her, babbling about aliens or bigfeet or something. Did it really matter? Membrane had always sat across from both of them, present in body but still not really there. He was always caught up in his own personal drama, playing the lead in an epic of discoveries and disasters befalling the world.

Even when the three of them sat together they were alone, isolated by their own minds. Now, on Foodcourtia, Gaz closed her eyes and wished that one of them had tried harder to burst their bubble of solitude. Membrane was busy, insanely so, and Dib was obsessed with chasing his aliens to the exclusion of all else, and Gaz would never give up her games but... maybe there could have been something. There was no chance for it now.  
  
Now she was alone out here, so unprepared that even her clothes could send make her homesick. Only a little, of course; Gaz was stronger then that... but the cotton fibers and nylon, prepared by human machines and touched by human hands, were the only things she had left of earth. They were relics, cheap souvenirs from a society that didn't exist anymore, but then again so was she.  
  
Gaz frowned, thin brows drawing together. She picked up the bulb of water sitting beside her on the table and took another slow sip, luxuriating in the cool liquid soothing her throat. Now that she wasn't gulping it she could taste the metallic bite of the water.  
  
Even the water tasted different. Gaz pursed her lips, set the water down again. She was tired of sitting. The restaurant was mostly empty, but the few scattered customers ensconced in their various booths watches the unfamiliar alien curiously as she pushed herself up and headed for the back room.  
  
Oh, it was delicious, to feel like a predator again. To feel human... no, _more_ than human now, imbued with the near-supernatural calm and focus that usually only video games brought to her.  
  
Sizz-Lorr was working over something in the back, his huge, meaty hands clamped around tools many times more delicate than his fingers. His deep-set violet eyes were slitted with concentration.  
  
The Frylord paid no attention as his guest circled around to observe his work. The Irken's face was pinched and intent; the tip of his snaky tongue poked out of one corner of his mouth.  
  
The probe in his hand twitched a hair to the left; Gaz clearly saw a spark leapfrog from the innards of the machine to his hand. Sizz-Lorr dropped the tool with a clink and spit out a strangled string of words. The language was incomprehensible but the tone of harried cursing was universal. Gaz bit down a smirk and when Sizz-Lorr shot her a venomous glare her face was impassive.

Countenance stony, Sizz-Lorr picked up the machine and offered it to her. Gaz took it with no hesitation; it was light and fit neatly into her hands.

She had a sudden flashback to holding her Game Slave.

"It is a tracker," the Frylord said. His purple eyes glanced over her appraisingly, and then he picked up a rag and began to wipe grease off his hands. "Your little ship will work for finding Zim while he was in space, but if you are to find him on foot you must have specialized equipment to do so."

Gaz hesitated, surprised on a deep level by this act from the Irken before her. Sizz-Lorr had helped her greatly, more than she expected, and thanks was probably in order but Gaz was not the type to give it and the Frylord was not the type to accept it gracefully. Instead she simply said "I'm sure I'll find good use for this."

Sizz-Lorr nodded in return, mouth puckering wryly. He held out his hand, and Gaz slowly handed the tracker back to him. "Bring a piece of his hide back for me, eh?" he growled. "I still must take revenge on him for leaving the restaurant at _rush hour_."

"How about I just tell him you said goodbye?" Gaz replied. A small, dark smile spread across her face. "I don't think there'll be much left when I'm finished with him."

"Heh!" Sizz-Lorr barked. "I look forward to hearing news of his messy demise." He gave her one last hard, appraising look and the smaller alien stared back at him, meeting his eyes for once. They were very narrow, he noted, and the color was funny, a dusty brown. And that opaque white around the color... an uncanny looking race, to be sure. He wondered if she would have a chance at her goal, a foreign alien heading for the heart of the Irken Empire.

It probably didn't matter. Zim's demise was insured either way, and dead was dead, at anyone's hands.

The ship was refueled and restocked, its passenger was fed and watered and clean. There was no reason to stay longer... Gaz felt the itch in her skin, in her soul, to be on the move again. Every second she was still was a second that Zim had to get ahead of her. And oh, there was still such a long way to go...

Gaz sat impatiently in the restaurant while Sizz-Lorr muttered and shuffled in the back room. She was almost antsy enough to just leave without accepting any help but the tracker was too tempting to pass up... And so she contained herself, counting off the minutes in her head.

When the Irken came out at last, he offered her a few simple things. A little more water for emergencies, the tracker, tuned, calm in his hands now. Perfect. And a long rumpled shape of fabric, black trimmed in red...

He offered the suit to her, letting it hang down so the fabric was visible. The human girl stared at it silently, absorbing the sleek padded lines of it, the thin smooth material. Gaz hesitated, and then reached out to finger the fabric. Slick, it was; slick as oil. She glanced up at him.

He studied her, face dark and wry. She didn't like the knowing look of it, the expectancy. "For you, if you like," he said. "You can't look like an orphaned waif forever."

Her fist clenched involuntarily. The fabric bunched and rippled in her hands. Gaz pulled it away from him; Sizz-Lorr let go, quite easily. How much did he know? How much did he guess? She couldn't trust him. He was Irken for all that he had helped her.

"I'll take it," she said abruptly. She didn't offer any more information.

Sizz-Lorr gave her a back room to change in, disdainful but understanding of the shreds of human modesty Gaz had left. The air was cold on her skin after she peeled off the layers and layers of human clothing, and the human squirmed as quickly as she could into the Irken garment. It fit quite well, snug and warm. Gaz wriggled her shoulders and wondered how Sizz-Lorr had got such a good idea of her measurements.

When she had changed Gaz gathered up her pile of human clothing, and alone allowed herself to bring the cloth to her nose and inhale her human scent, the oils of skin and machine grease. They were her last lifelines to earth, and she was throwing them away... cotton fields and factories, sewing machines, and human workers folding and boxing them...

Sizz-Lorr gave her a strange look when she came out carrying them close up against her chest. Gaz hesitated at it, imperceptibly, thinking. Pulling them closer then finally pushing them away.

When she stood by the entry hatch to the ship she dropped them on the ground. Ugly tattered things, dull colors, like dead leaves... "I don't need them," she said, cold. Perfectly in control. "Burn them, won't you?"

Oh, it was so easy to leave things behind...

She crawled into the cockpit and leaned pack into the padding of the pilot's seat. The claustrophobic curved walls were almost homey now. This was where she belonged. This was home.

Liftoff was smooth and easy. The ship didn't speak, except to request commands and follow through. As the field of stars opened before her Gaz let herself relax, ooze fluidly into a comfortable position. The tracker she fiddled with in her hands, fingering the controls and tracing the edge of the screen. Home.

Sizz-Lorr watched the strange modified ship depart curiously. It didn't seem possible that she could possibly attain her goal... but then, it was a strange universe. Anything could happen. And she had been an impressive specimen, for an inferior species. He suspected that Zim would have the fight of his life when she caught up with him.

The dot shrank into Foodcourtia's sky. Sizz-Lorr squinted a moment, then turned away with a grunt of disgust. He still had customers to take care of.

END OF CHAPTER 6

_Apologies for the wait. I just hope this chapter was worth it._

_October 24, 2004_


	7. Going Nowhere at the Speed of Light

"Stupid robot!"

Zim scratched angrily at his slave's shell, searching for the key for the hatch that would allow him access to GIR's machine-guts. Clumsily he rolled the SIR unit over: GIR's head made an empty clang noise against the metal floor. His eyes were unknowing and dark, mouth hanging open. Zim's claws found the catch on his chest and the SIR unit's body opened up, unfolded into a chaos of tangled wires and circuits and random junk. A dreadful smell struck the Irken in the face and he recoiled, face wrinkling. Then he gritted his teeth and bore it, sifting through the tangled mess GIR's hull contained carefully. After a moment he came to the source of the smell: some small rotted parcel of food that had somehow been squirreled away in GIR's belly, sealed and left to go odious for months. No wonder it stank. It was a marvel that the robot had even functioned as long as he had. There really should have been checks to keep the robot from getting into his own vital organs, but GIR was good at getting past those kinds of things...

Grimacing with disgust the alien lifted the near-liquid lump from the tangles of wires around it and flung it to the side, shaking his hand fastidiously. Then he plunged his hands into the slithering wires once more, feeling around for the wire that he had yanked loose six months ago.

Finally under his fumbling claws some vital connection was made. The SIR unit's limbs twitched spasmodically and his eyes flickered to bright crimson. The hatch on his chest snapped shut and Zim yanked his hand free, cursing vividly in Irken. Meanwhile his slave stood up sharply, rapped off a picture-perfect salute. "GIR, reporting for duty!" Zim could hear things rattling around in his head, normally used as a thermos by elite soldiers with a thirst to quench.

He didn't stay in duty mode for long, of course. The eyes flickered, blurring from red to blue, red to blue. His mouth dropped open, and then curved into an empty-headed grin. The posture drooped from military discipline to a rocking slouch. "Hiiii, master," GIR whispered, conspiratorial. "How's it hangin'?"

_What?_ Zim blinked for a moment, nonplussed. He would never understand GIR's fondness for earth slang.

Already the SIR was distracted, rocking back and forth on his nubby metal feet, sticking his hand into his mouth and sucking it. Zim drooped a little, looking at him, sighed. "GIR! I need you to focus. We've almost reached our interception point with the Massive. But there's still MUCH to do!" He tossed a frantic look around the walls, already bursting to be ready. The next hours would be a rush of frantic preparation and anticipation. He was meeting with his leaders in person for the first time in seven years... "I've reactivated you so you can help me ready the ship for docking and inspection. Can you _handle_ this, GIR?"

"Is big head boy around?" GIR squealed, giving no evidence that he had even heard a word Zim said. His metallic tongue poked cheerily out of the corner of his mouth. "I wanna say hi!"

Zim gritted his teeth, suddenly remembering why he had deactivated his slave in the first place. GIR, scrabbling at the human's container, waving and calling futilely... _"Hey! Hey! Hi big head boy! HIII! Whatcha doing? Come out and play death piggies with me!" _ And GIR coming to chatter at his master: _"What's Dib doin'? Why won't he wake up? He's bein' boring! I wanna play with him!"_ Days and days without end, without reprieve, GIR babbling cheerily, forlornly, tantruming, cajoling, until Zim finally snapped and shut him down for the long trip back to Irken territory. Left to chafe at the bounds of his own buzzing mind, eaten up with silence and the growing current of his own self-doubt. He hated silence, being alone, more than he hating anything else. More than he hated Dib even.

"NO, GIR. You may NOT say hello to the Dib-worm." Inhale, exhale. Remain calm. Ignore those puppy eyes... he's a robot, how can he do them anyway...? "You may not SPEAK to the Dib. The Dib is _inferior_." Good so far...

GIR's eyes widened, somehow. His lower lip quivered pathetically. "But... but I LIKE him! Can't we just have biscuits? BISCUITS?!" He leaned forward a little to whisper in Zim's antennae. "I'm gonna invite him and cow to a tea party! All special-like!" He leaned back and grinned at Zim, tongue poking out and eyes squished into happy crescents. The Invader gritted his teeth. _...Oh Tallest, why me?_

_..Okay, changing plans..._ Zim unclenched his fists with an effort. _Wasting time, wasting time, can't AFFORD it right now..._ He modulated his voice into smoothness. "You know what, GIR?" he ground out, doing his best to sound coaxing. "I think that I'll give you a _special_ job instead. One far more IMPORTANT than dealing with the Dib."

Instantly the robot perked up. The tears bubbling ominously below his cyan eyes dried up in seconds and were replaced with a look of adoration.

"What do I getta do, master?!"

This, now, this freely-given devotion, _this_ was why Zim had truly kept the SIR unit active on earth. GIR, idiot that he was, was somehow also the only creature cognizant of Zim's genius. There was hope for him yet.

"For _you_, GIR, there is the second-most important job of all!" Zim told his slave. "The first-most special job goes, of course, to _Zim._ Now! Your job is to... uh..."

Now came the part where he actually thought of something for GIR to do.

"You can... polish... the floors! Yes! It's very important, GIR, that our floors be as clean as the ingenious tupperware of Plasticia! The Tallest will marvel at the cleanliness of the floors of ZIIIIM!"

GIR pranced eagerly, caught up in Zim's wild posturing. "I'll clean! I'll clean them floors so goooood! Cleaner than SPAAAACE MEEEEEEAT!"

The SIR dashed to the farthest corner of the room, fell to all fours, and began licking.

Zim cocked an eye at his slave. Internally he shrugged. If it would keep GIR out of trouble, he sure wouldn't complain...

Slowly, so the robot wouldn't notice and start an uproar, he backed away, edged through the open door, and gestured it shut behind him. That would keep GIR occupied for a while at least, while Zim attended to more important things.

Zim folded his claws behind his back and marched to the elevator. The platform shifted smoothly upwards; Zim stared idly at the wall, blanking his mind. His antennae quivered with tension. He wondered if Dib was in the mood for talking.

The elevator stopped at the medical bay, where Dib was interred for lack of any better place to keep him. Zim hesitated again before the door, gritting his teeth, eaten by a sudden burst of nervousness. What was the meaning of this?! The Dib was contained within a tube, naked, weaponless, utterly at Zim's mercy. There was no reason to be... _afraid_... of him...

Zim shifted from foot to foot to foot, bit his lip, and gestured the door open.

It was so much the same yet still all different. Dib was awake this time, already hostile, and when he saw Zim his eyes narrowed. The human reached out, put his pale hands again the clear polymer. He didn't even try to talk but his eyes followed the alien, traced his progress across the floor to the computer bank that controlled the environment of his tube.

Zim turned to look at him and narrowed his own large eyes in return. _Remember your PLACE, stinky Dib...STINK. Remember your place at the mercy of ZIM._

Fluid drained again. Dib's head broke the surface quickly and he leaned forward, coughing up gunk. Drops of fluid dripped from his chin and nose. But he was ready, this time, when the tube rose into the ceiling and let him out.

There he stood, the human boy, unreasonably fearless. Light glanced off his nervously twitching muscles. Maybe he wasn't as confident as he seemed...? Probably not. He wasn't stupid. He knew he was vulnerable. Zim knew it too. Here, this close, they could read each other, feed off of each other, without things hidden between them. Dib knowing Zim was a price Zim had paid for the power of knowing Dib. No boundaries between them. As enemies they knew each other like brothers. Zim ground his teeth and denied it.

_We are not equals we are not._

Remember that, Zim. Remember it.

"All right, Dib!" He said savagely. "We're _almost_ there, only a couple hours yet! I'll make you _fit_ for presentation to the _Tallest_."

"Giving me up 'cause you can't beat me yourself, huh?" Dib sneered in return. "That's so typical."

Already he was itching to hit the human. Not that it ever took much.

"SILENCE, mewling smeet-human! NONE of your WORDS for the Tallest, unless you want to eating LAZER as a snack right away!" He marched forward, unfolding his paklegs and lifting on to them as he moved. Dib held his ground even though he had to look up at Zim just slightly now.

"Yeah, well, nothing I do will make any difference in the end ANYWAY, huh?"

Zim didn't answer. Instead he opted for grabbing the Dib by his ear- such convenient handles they made- and towing him over to the elevator. He shoved the human in fiercely so he stumbled against the wall, not quite coordinated yet, and hopped in after him. "Stay there!" he barked when Dib began to stand strait again. "And I want your hands where I can see them, human."

Dib sneered at him, raised his hands so that they were behind his head. Kept them there as the elevator descended. When the door slid open on the lowest level he cocked his head, shifted his expression to a bland, supercilious smile and didn't move. Zim made his own face into stone. "All right, _march_."

Dib strolled down the hall, his rival behind him. Zim itched to force a pakleg through the boy's thick skull and end it right there. It had been so much _easier_ to pity the Dib while he was sleeping. Then he shook himself. This was... better. Invaders could not _pity_ the species they subjugated.

But he had forgotten, the myriad ways Dib knew to get under his skin. How he knew Zim's buttons. He kept up his silence when Zim ordered him into the equipping room at the end of the passage, only looking at the alien silently when he was forced into the machine that would clothe him. Zim watched the shells slam closed with gusto, hoping the Dib would scream.

The human disappointed him. The shells split and Dib only stumbled slightly coming out, regaining his feet in moments, aided by the textured grips on the soles of the suit. Zim shut the machine down with the flick of a switch and bounded to grab the human by his hair this time. The spike was no longer there, shorn from Dib's scalp by the military buzz-cut that had been forced upon him, but there was still enough coarse black hair to get a good grip on.

"All right," Zim whispered to the human. "Listen to me, listen, _listen_ to ZIM.

This is what you are going to do. When we meet the Tallest, you will be _silent_. NO TALKING. ZIM will talk. ZIM will hand you over to the scientists. You will NOT talk. You will go with them. You will follow their orders."

"Do not make Zim look stupid, huh?" Dib whispered back. "Well, tell me this, Zim: how can you stop me? I'll do what I want. There's nothing more you can do to me. I'll say what I want to them."

"You will NOT." Zim shook him. "If you don't promise this Zim will... will burn out your vocal cords! You will NOT... make Zim look BAD... for the Tallest."

Dib's face had gone smooth and grey. He looked back at his rival, eyes slitted. Maybe the threat had finally gotten to him?

"Fine," he conceded. "Fine."

The human had conceded. Zim breathed again.

They went back up on the elevator again, together. Zim watched the human closely, even after forcing him to hold his hands up again. He still didn't trust the human. Didn't trust him giving in. He shouldn't have given his reason to him. That was a mistake? Why did he do that?

But the human had agreed. Finally, he had given way, even just to one small thing. But Dib was wily. He had lied before. He couldn't trust that. Couldn't trust his agreement and, now that he thought of it, couldn't damage him to insure his silence either. The scientists would need a perfect specimen.

Zim had never been so grateful for the elevator doors opening. In so close, he could smell the Dib extra-acutely, almost taste the human scent on the air. Could feel his body's heat. Could feel the air currents he made turning his head and breathing. Irkens did not tend to claustrophobia but Zim was beginning to suffer from it slightly.

They moved out in tandem, Dib without orders this time. He was so thin, worn down to his essence by months of living on only the barest nutrients. Muscle stood out like cords and his wrists might have been just a layer of skin over bone. It made him, with the suit, appear almost Irken. The resemblance was discomforting. Zim pressed his antennae back against his head, regretting it.

"All right," He told the human. "I want you where I can _see_ you. So you're coming up to the command bay with me."

"You know," Dib broke his silence, "it's pretty pathetic that even when I'm totally defenseless you're STILL scared I'll beat you. What kind of loser defenses do you have, Zim?"

"SILENCE, human PIG-stink! The intricacies of Irken defense shall be known only to the _Armada..._"

He prodded the boy with a pakleg to get him moving in the right direction. Dib shifted to walk more towards to elevator and then stopped very suddenly. Zim almost walked into his back. "What IS it?" he snapped, and then stopped at a shrill giggle bursting from the elevator.

_GIR! Oh, not now..._

Indeed it was GIR, regarding the two of them cheerily with a look of general approval. "Hi, master!" he greeted Zim, and then he turned his attention to Dib. "Hiiii, big head boy..."

Zim reached out, dug his claws into the back of Dib's neck, and propelled him forward. "Carry on with the floor-cleaning, GIR!" he ordered. "You're doing a fine job so far! Yes! I'm just taking the Dib up to deal with him! Carry on!"

GIR ignored him completely, latching on to the human boy's leg. "I wanna have a tea party with yooou, Dib!"

"Nice, Zim," Dib snickered. "You still can't get this stupid thing to work right, huh?"

"Quiet!" Zim felt a headache starting. "GIR is superior Irken technology! So superior you can hardly comprehend it!"

"Oh, yeah right," Dib snorted. "I guess you can just keep telling yourself that. Not like it'll make any difference anyway."

"Where you goin' with the Diiiiib, master?" GIR sing-songed. "Can he have tea with me an pig first?"

"_No._ No tea with the _Dib,_ GIR. _Remember? What I told you?_" Zim snapped. "Can't you just _obey me?_ I said OBEY!" He added as the robot began to sniffle. "The Dib is INFERIOR! He is not for you to be concerned with! _I_ will take care of this!"

GIR dropped off Dib's leg totally, skittering backwards to stare up at his master. Whatever he saw in Zim's face did not reassure him and the robot's eyes began to fill with tears. He put up one tiny hand to wipe them away and said in a small voice, "Master... are you mad at your friend...? Please don't be mad... I didn't mean to leave you out... you could have tea with us too..."

"I said NO, GIR!" Zim roared, at the end of his patience. He shook Dib around by the neck again in frustration. "Now stay down here and just do what I TOLD you!"

He shoved the unresisting human onto the elevator and ordered the doors shut with a snarl. Once closed in with Dib- for the last time on this miserable trip, he promised himself- he could feel the atmosphere getting heavy. It was weighing him down, Dib's silent contempt, the aftermath of driving GIR to tears. He didn't like to do that. He tried to avoid it. He wished Dib hadn't seen it...

"Wow, Zim," Dib broke the silence. His voice was very quiet. "You really don't know what you're doing, do you?"

END OF CHAPTER 8

_Chapter completed November 14, 2004._


	8. Spin me to a New State of Mind

_Blip… blip… blip… blip._

Gaz studied the machine in her lap with interest. She didn't need to be using this smaller beacon right now, and would turn it off soon to conserve the battery, but it was reassuring somehow to know that they were really going in the right direction. The display on the screen was simple, merely an isosceles triangle that twitched and adjusted itself to point in Zim's direction. She stroked gently at the smooth metal, letting the red light flood into her eyes until she teared up from not blinking. Finally, with reluctance, she turned it off and held the small machine close to her heart.

She didn't trust the ship, didn't trust where Tak's personality might be taking her. It would be all too easy for the ship to betray her and take her straight to the Irken leaders. The tracker given by Sizz-Lorr had set her at rest, though; they were indeed proceeding in the right direction to catch up with Zim. It wouldn't be long now…

She looked back up, studied the field of stars disinterestedly. She shifted a bit in her seat. Her calf was cramping, and she contorted her body so she could massage the spasming muscle. This was what made getting out of the Spittle Runner terrible: how it took forever to get used to its confines again… but soon, it would all be over, and she wouldn't have to deal with it anymore. She would take her revenge on Zim for her family- horribly, of course- and would take her brother back. If he was still alive, at least. If not… then both her father and her brother would still be avenged.

God, there was nothing to do on here. How she wished she had managed to salvage her Game Slave or something, _anything_ to break up the relentless tedium of the flight. There was no room to move, and the days of being cooped up made her soft and listless. There was only so much time a person could spend sleeping. You couldn't play stupid traveling games by yourself either; Gaz sneered to think of asking the ship to play I Spy, and where would you find road signs in outer space? Dib had always had some stupid game he wanted to play with her, when they had to go someplace for one of their Dad's things. She had never obliged him, always preferring the company of her game slave, a book, or her CD player. More often than not she had had to smack him before he turned huffily to his own devices.

She swept the star field with her gaze again, watching for anything out of the ordinary no matter how unlikely it was. Like there was going to be an interesting accident with hundreds of miles, on average, between ships?

Space was still an even, unchanging vista of black and white though, which was really no surprise. Gaz settled back in her seat and folded her arms across her chest. "Hey," she said. "How much longer will it be?"

Tak growled irritably through the speakers, and then deigned to give a response. "We're not so far behind now. Maybe three days. But he's very close to the Armada. If he catches up to them I will not be powerful enough to penetrate the AMAZING defenses of the Massive.... The Tallest will probably kill him anyway though."

Gaz dug her fingers into her arms. "Well, we'll just have to catch him before he gets there."

Tak grumbled over the speakers, wordless, mutinous little noises. Gaz ignored them to lay her head back and close her eyes.

The human girl sank into a dull sort of doze, shunting Tak's whining and her own all-encompassing boredom away. Her hands squeezed, then relaxed, and the tracker slid down beside her.

…

"_Let's play a game, Gaz."_

_Dib looked at her brightly, his eyes shining behind his glasses. Gaz, seated across from him, grunted and turned up the volume on her Game Slave, wishing she had ear phones so she could tune him out totally. "Your voice is irritating…" she informed him flatly. Dib blinked at her, unfazed. He was used to those kinds of words from his sister. They were pretty much all he had heard from her since she learned to talk at two. _

"_Aww, come on, Gaz. You've been playing for six hours already…" _

_The car's clock blinked ten o'clock. Membrane, concentrating on his driving in the front seat, said absently, "Don't bother your sister, son. Video games develop valuable hand-eye coordination, a valuable skill for a future in the arts or the military!"_

_Dib pouted, turning to stare sullenly out his window at the lamp lights streaking by. He kicked his legs a little, banging them into the back of the empty front seat. Gaz was sitting behind their father; Membrane had decreed that both children would be put into the back to preclude arguments over who got to sit in the front. This had merely created a whole new set of things to argue over, namely who was encroaching on whose space and whether or not Dib's head was blocking Gaz's view out the windows. _

_The silence stretched out. Dib snuck a glance at his sister, tentative, wary. He wanted to talk to her but didn't want to make her mad. Gaz opened one eye wide to shoot a glare at him, and Dib quickly looked out the window again, hunching his shoulders protectively, turning totally away from his sister. Gaz turned back to the lit screen of her Game Slave. Dib checked over his shoulder surreptitiously, to make sure she wasn't glaring at him, then turned a wide-eyed stare upon her. Gaz jerked her face up and frowned at him. "Daddy!" she said in a voice of shrill outrage. "Dib won't stop lookin' at me!"_

_Dib was quick to present his side of the argument. "I'm bored! There's nothin' to do and she won't play with me! Are we there yet, Dad?" He pouted again, craning to present his scrunched face in the rearview mirror. Maybe if Membrane could see him he would be swayed. "I'm bored…"_

_Membrane chuckled indulgently. "Oh, you kids! Now son, it won't be much longer. Daughter, why don't you play with your brother for a bit?" He shifted his grip on the steering wheel. "I need to focus on the road, kids. Removing my attention from it might result in a terrible accident and all our deaths!"_

_Gaz looked at her father with wide eyes, attention caught by the prospect of horrible suffering and death. "Wow, really?" she whispered. She thought for a moment, eyes abnormally large. "I can't wait to learn to drive!"_

"_Gaz, Gaz!" Dib clamored. He was only six, and too inclined to be hyper and energetic to entertain himself quietly on a long car ride on his own. Gaz was even younger, of course, but she had been born with the patience of a snake. Now that he had a playmate Dib was insanely eager to interact with them, even if it was just his temperamental sister. "Let's play I Spy, huh Gaz? I'll go first!"_

_Gaz snorted and folded her arms grumpily. She was already tired of Dib's dumb game, and she was sleepy, and Dib's stupid breathing and the weird car seat she had to sit in hadn't let her nap. "Fine. This is dumb."_

_The boy ignored his sister's deprecating words, instead craning out the window for a likely object for Gaz to guess. "I spy… um… oh, there's a… no that's no good… I spy a… ooh! I spy something big and hairy that sucks blood when darkness falls!" He turned back in his seat to stare eagerly at his sister, bouncing up and down with excitement. "Come on, Gaz! Guess!"_

_She sneered. "I bet it's a chupacabra, huh?"_

_Dib frowned at her and slouched in his seat. "Yeah. Fine, now you go."_

"_I spy something big and stupid and white and huge! As big as a planet!"_

_The pale boy's face reddened uncontrollably. Dib was sensitive, and all-too-cognizant of the mockery of the other kids, and he recognized a jibe towards his head by now. "My head's not that big!" It was just his dumb bowl cut that made it look that way..._

_Gaz stuck her tongue out at him, and then sang "Big head! Should be dead! Gotta melon for a braaa-aaain! Big head! Should be dead-"_

_Dib's lower lip wobbled. "Daddyyy…" he mewled. "Gaz is being mean to me!" He knew from long experience not to try and take up the issue with his hell-spawned sister himself._

_Up in the front seat Membrane sighed audibly. This happened all too often and without his wife Membrane was the one who had to smooth things over. He wasn't nearly as good at it as she had been, either._

_It was probably a mistake to bring the kids to the science convention, too. However, no babysitter would think of taking on Membrane's children for a weekend and there was no close family he could dump them on. Maybe there would be a special daycare for them or something…_

"_We're here anyhow, kids," he said, straining his eyes to look for a parking space. "Get ready to get out, OK?"_

_Absolutely delighted at the prospect of getting out of each other's company, Gaz and Dib scrambled to gather their scattered toys and picture books…_

…

The corners of Gaz's mouth quirked up at the memory. God, those trips were the only time they got to spend with their father… of course, once Membrane felt that Dib was old enough to hold down the fort for a couple days on his own, he started to leave them at home, reasoning that children couldn't be expected to be interested in highly sophisticated REAL SCIENCE. Dib had been crestfallen, because although he was disinterested in most of the panels his father had attended, he had been by any of them that dealt with space or the possibility of life on other planets. Gaz hadn't cared for the presentations at all, but Membrane had to sit still to watch them, and she got to sit by him… and time spent with her father was rare enough, even before he invented super toast and hit it big.

Not that she could complain about how great life had been after Membrane got really rich… games and a future where she wouldn't have to worry about anything except what to spend that money on. Or so she had thought, before _this_ came up.

Gaz opened her eyes a little, staring blankly through the cockpit's window. Her eyes were blurry from the half-sleep she had fallen into, and the girl blinked several times and then rubbed her eyes ferociously before she really noticed how the view had changed.

Large sections of stars were blocked out by jagged silhouettes of black. As Gaz stared at them, actually startled, the outline of it shifted to reveal that stars had indeed been blocked by the shape. Against all the odds, they had flown into the general area of some debris. Either small debris that was very close or huge debris that was far away.

"Tak," she asked. "What is that?" The shapes seemed too angular to be just… space rocks or something. What had the ship taken them into?

"I'm finding out," the ship snapped snobbishly. "Just wait, girl human!"

Interest piqued, Gaz didn't even snipe back at the weak insult. Instead she sat forward, placing her hands against the cold material of the window to study the shapes closer. As the spittle runner moved the dark shapes loomed larger and larger, almost totally obscuring the stars. Tak guided the tiny ship expertly through the floating pieces, skimming neatly over the surfaces. As they covered the area, inspecting each piece, a larger shape became clear… the picture these pieces had made up, before they were broken into a puzzle.

It was a ship. The shattered and drifting pieces of a ship. A ship that had been fractured into a million different pieces that were still close together…

"This is an Irken ship," Tak announced coldly. "An Irken ship destroyed in Irken territory. And whoever did this… is still around…"

Gaz licked her lips slightly. She felt something inside her begin to boil, churning steadily until her hands were twitching slightly and the hair on the back of her neck stood up. Not fear; _never_ fear, but eagerness. After months of sitting on her hands letting events take their course she might get the chance to pummel someone. She didn't care if they were Irken or not.

"Can you detect anyone?" she whispered, not from any real need to but simply from reflex.

"What? No. Stop distracting me!" Tak sounded harried. Maybe scared...? "I'm sure someone is here. But they're cloaked! They're hiding! I can't punch through it!"

"Just go," Gaz ordered. "Resume… resume your original flight path. But keep an…" She struggled for a moment with the idiom, then continued. "Keep an eye out. We'll see if we can't lure them into the open."

"You don't have to tell me such obvious plans!" Tak flared. "Stupid human, I've been concocting strategies since before your were born!"

Nevertheless, the spittle runner wove its way through the gracefully spinning ruins and turned to follow the regular course. Gaz sat tense as a bow, waiting for trouble.

By the time they ran into some she had almost become bored.

Small, blocky ships came screaming out of the darkness surrounding them, at least five of them converging on the spittle runner. One of them came swooping onto their tail; and faster than even Gaz could react Tak looped the runner tightly up and around, shooting back towards the direction of the Irken ruins. The ship was screaming something in a terrible high-pitched gabbly voice; Gaz was being tumbled so much, fending off boxes of supplies and trying to keep the tracker from falling around that it was hard to concentrate on anything.

She fell heavily forward onto the curve of the screen, snapping her neck back and shielding her head with her arm as boxes came thumping down onto her. Her back arched painfully, straining. The ship went off on another insane right-angle turn and she fell to the side, then bounced neatly back into the seat. "Tak!" she screamed. "Give me the controls! Give them to me, Tak!"

"Never!" the ship roared back. "Irken military secrets will never be stolen by YOU lowly stinkbeasts-!"

Gaz could see they were outdistancing the alien ships, inch by inch. What kind of engineer had Tak been, to build a machine from scrap parts that could STILL after years of mistreatment and neglect on earth outdistance fresh-from-the-factory alien ships? Amazing. Amazing.

There was energy, deep in her core, boiling and popping like hot oil. Gaz gasped and heaved with rage, near-vomiting all over the high-tech insides that Tak had worked so hard to build and design. "You're just a SHIP, I CONTROL you, I CONTROL you!" _No matter how ADVANCED no matter how AMAZING I am more amazing STILL stop now and OBEY ME you are MINE…! _She felt so hot, like she was burning up inside. All her organs were twisting.

They were back in the ruins now. The runner took cover in a curved piece that had probably been part of the hull once, before these… whatevers… had attacked and destroyed it. Gaz snarled, untangling herself from the other cargo, watching desperately for the other ships. Tak was planning an ambush, she was sure of it, shielding herself with other Irken technology. It would maybe even work…

"Tak!" she insisted, flailing openhanded at the buttons and controls. "Tak, let me pilot!" Because all of a sudden, she had thought better of destroying these things. They had attacked an Irken ship. What if they could become allies…?

The other ships hadn't come in. They weren't taking the bait; not stupid enough to fall for Tak's rather basic plan. Gaz floundered uncomfortably back to a position she could maneuver from. "Tak, _damn_ you- give me the controls!"

"Hailing us!" Tak screeched in return. "They're hailing us! Telling me to surrender! Oooh, you _filthy_ INFERIORS, how DARE they suggest that an ELITE Irken soldier would even THINK of giving in to their demands…!"

Gaz screamed a curse and braced herself as best she could before the spittle runner went careering out between the floating monoliths and back into the fray. The scorching heat in her belly and back throbbed and wavered, burning her up from the inside. She was seeing bright spots in front of her eyes, not just spots but swirls and spirals and insane fractal patterns that made her mind shrink and wail. Tak jerked and twisted her flight plan expertly, dodging the lasers from the other ships with ease. She screamed with laughter and rage over the ship's speaker, while Gaz gasped desperately and fought to gain control of the ship without losing her lunch at the same time.

There were more of the smaller ships now, Gaz noticed. Like cockroaches, they were, had Tak even taken out one? She could hardly think from the strange, dark energy beating behind her eyes. Like a migraine that had gotten big plans, plans for crawling out and taking over the rest of the world. _Oh God, hurts so much…_

Her palms were hot too, heat was coursing from everywhere, she could feel it coming off her skin in waves. Her brain was boiling in her head. Gaz slammed her palm down on the controls on last time. Her voice was cracked and terrible. "Tak… GIVE ME the controls…! Surrender! Open a line! Just stop!"

Finally, the ship turned it's attention slightly to the passenger. "Oh, what is wrong with you NOW you filthy weakling… The Irken elite does not surrender!"

The energy burst from her hand, given an outlet at last. It jumped and snapped through the metal into the internal workings of the ship, wreaking havoc on Tak's control. Her voice broke up into static and gibberish then faded away. The runner's gravity abruptly cut, leaving the cargo and Gaz free to float. She snatched the tracker from the air.

Gaz took a deep breathe, lungs expanding easily. The pressure and heat inside her was gone. Her head was clear again. She still felt sick.

The spittle runner spun, rudderless, through space. The other ships followed in a swarm, keeping their distance but settling close enough to catch the Irken ship if it decided to make a bid for freedom. Gaz reached out to touch the window of the runner, anchoring herself. The rotation of the ship was making her dizzy.

The mother ship came up slowly. It was a long, boxy ship, without any of the fluid lines Irkens favored. Gaz took that as a good sign.

There was a sudden slight shock that jolted the runner, a wobble that made the human lose her grip and float into a gentle spin. The stars streamed by beyond the huge ship and Gaz watched them dreamily. She glared out at them balefully, daring them to let their guard down… even if she wasn't feeling so great right now… Dully she watched as the doors to a docking bay ground slowly, silently open in the belly of the ship. The spittle runner glided through easily, gracefully, and was locked into grounding clamps. Gravity came in again, quite rudely, and Gaz fell with a grunt.

She was half-stupefied with exhaustion, and so when the entry to the spittle was forced and two bizarre-looking aliens squirmed in to drag her out she didn't immediately take steps to make them regret it. Instead she simply did her best to support her own weight in their tight grip, too burned out to unleash wrath upon them but too stubborn to fall, and blinked that the tiny alien with curled horns and goggles that was glaring at her. "What in the name of Woon Sen with you?!" he demanded twitchily. "You're not an Irken!"

_Chapter finished December 19, 2004._

_Sorry for the long wait. Was it worth it? Tell me. ;)_

_I actually decided to upload this early; I was planning to release it on the 29th, my birthday, but since I'm going to have stuff going on that day, YOU GET IT EARLY! WOOO! Celebrate._

_And, ehe, one more thing... I have a new deviantart accound, and there's some IZ-related stuff up. Take a look if you like... www skitterklat deviantart com. Take the spaces out and replace them with periods.. hope that works. Yeah, I'm totally high-class._


	9. Leave Me Gently

The control room was quiet now. Dib had subsided into silence, and was gazing blankly out the window, his eyes glassy. He hand been bound to his chair at wrist and ankle with sizzling energy bonds, and he couldn't move very much. Zim didn't think he even really noticed the restrictions, or saw the dark red cloud of ships that they were approaching; he was simply staring off into space, face blank. It was slightly disappointing… okay, Zim had to admit, it was more than slightly disappointing. Zim had expected his final victory to elicit a bit more of a reaction. So where was the anguish? Where was the stream of insults? The human was plotting something, Zim was sure of it… he would never give up this easily otherwise.

He perched on the seat, kicking his feet back and forth, watching Dib. It was weird, seeing the human without his glasses and signature trench coat. He couldn't get over how young it made the human look, how _defenseless _Dib seemed without them. It made him look naked still, even with the Irken suit. It was too tight, that was why. Dib had always seemed to favor clothes that were bulky and baggy and black and slightly intimidating to his fellow humans. The trend had become even more noticeable in high school, where Dib's boots became even bigger and chunkier and his trench coats more elaborate with buckles and metal fixings. Zim, who knew defensive posturing when he saw it, had never pressed his enemy about it. Dib made a better, more challenging rival when he had some things for himself. Though there was no place for defiance here…

He wondered how long it would take for Dib to learn that.

They were close to docking now. Soon enough the human would be in Irken hands, no longer Zim's concern. And then Dib would be DISSECTED! Yes! And ZIIIM would get to watch! Maybe there would be some screaming then.

Heartened, Zim turned to the ship's controls, running checks that were redundant and unnecessary. One of the flagships that followed the Massive had taken control of their smaller craft and was guiding them to a docking ship about 500 miles away from the Massive itself. So many aliens were constantly buzzing in and out of the Armada to do business with the Tallest or deal with others on the Massive that there was no way it could hold every craft and quarters for all that needed them. As such, there were docking ships equipped with teleporters made exclusively for parking spacecraft and then shunting the guests quickly, and without much fuss, onto the Massive.

They headed into one of these now, a moderately-sized one painted a deep purple. Zim's ship was well-sized (he had converted it from the space station that he had built to orbit the earth), but this ship was larger by far. As they neared it the rounded violet side of it rolled towards them to reveal thick tubes that squirmed and lashed through the emptiness of space. They were headed for the ports installed in the belly of Zim's ship. There were no stars to look at now; all there was to look at was a curved violet wall and, inescapable, the black emblem of the Armada. From the corner of his eye Zim saw Dib tense; the human sat a little straighter, and when the alien glanced surreptitiously at him the boy's eyes were a bit more alert.

The ship jarred when the teleport tube slammed into it; Zim hopped off his seat at the motion, bristling with eagerness. With the push of a button he freed Dib from his bonds. "Up now, human!" he snapped. The boy was a touch slow getting up and Zim grabbed him by the forearm and dragged at him without thinking. Dib jerked his arm away once he was standing and Zim hissed at him sharply.

The elevator dropped them down to the level below, where GIR was scratching and weeping at the floor. Zim hesitated by him, debating the pros and cons of taking his SIR with him. The thought of GIR throwing a temper tantrum in front of the Tallest prompted him to walk on. Dib glanced over his shoulder at the robot but followed without protest, following Zim down and down until they reached the teleporters, near the front of the ship.

A moment later, two beams of crackling pink light shot to the Massive.

They materialized on a broad red deck, a small group of six guards to greet them. Zim shook off the brief sense of vertigo in seconds, and grinned proudly out at the crowd. It felt GOOD to be back! Good to be with others who looked like him. The sweetish scent of Irken skin almost overwhelmed Dib's strong must.

Dib, standing beside him, was having a little more trouble getting his bearings. He scrabbled to his feet, swaying, staring back and forth wildly. His eyes were dilated. He was breathing very quickly.

The guards made no noise, but moved to surround Irken and prisoner quickly. "Irken Invader Zim," one said, sounding bored. His purple eyes were flat and gazed straight ahead, not even glancing down to acknowledge the small Invader or his human. "We will escort you to your audience with the Tallest. Come."

"YES!" Zim, elated, pumped his fists in the air in a small victory dance. "The Tallest cannot wait to hear the amazing exploits of ZIIIIM! I knew it!"

He whirled to point at Dib, his black-gloved fist quivering in the air. "This one will come along! But watch him closely- despite his inferiority, he can be tricky!"

Two guards closed around the human. They were both slightly shorter than he was; one just barely made it to his chin, the other was approximately the height of his collarbones. Still, Zim didn't have any qualms about putting the human into their hands. They couldn't have made it this far in rank if they weren't competent.

The guards by Dib both took a hard grip on his arms and began marching him forward. The teleportation must have been hard on him; Dib didn't look good at all. He stumbled as they dragged on him. Zim grinned at the human hugely, before whirling to strut between two other guards.

They walked through the drab halls for a few minutes, making for a teleport room that reroute them to the Tallest's lounge. There was no conversation, the only noise the rapping of Irken boots and Dib's gasps.

When they were beamed to the receiving pad in the middle of the lounge, Dib looked even worse. He was pale and immediately sweaty, with huge bluish rings under his eyes. Zim didn't pay his poor condition any attention; all he had eyes for were the two immensely tall, skinny being swiveling to look at them.

Red and Purple didn't look any different. The two of them never seemed to change, and Zim wasn't surprised; before he had begun the flight back to Irken territory he had kept in regular contact with them. Irkens lived so long anyway that a mere seven years was far too short for significant change. The light still gleamed gently on the polish of their armor; both still towered above him, and above Dib as well.

Zim stepped forward and bowed his head, wiggling his antennae dutifully to each of them. "My Tallest!" he said. "It is GOOD to be back! My invasion, as you have heard, has been a success. The planet earth is conquered under the Irken flag, its population decimated. I have returned with the best of them to present to you, so that you may decide whether or not the race should be eliminated or would better serve the Empire as slaves. Your soldier has served you well! Now reward ZIIIM!" He clawed at the air suddenly, fingers grasping, and cackled. The guards all leaned away a bit and looked down at him strangely. Red, acquainted with his outbursts, sighed.

"Yeah sure whatever, great job Zim. However," the ruler frowned, pursing his mouth, "you're late. Hugely late. All the other Invaders have subjugated their planets already. Impending Doom 2 is over now."

"Nooo!" Zim howled. His eyes were huge. "You must not turn away your greatest, most loyal soldier! I have done an awesome service to the Empire! Do not turn it awaaaaay!"

Purple's teeth were grinding. Red could hear it. Zim should have heard it, and adjusted his behavior accordingly, but he stayed where he was, staring up at the rulers beseechingly.

Red flicked his co-ruler a quelling glance. He would handle this. "Okay, Zim," he said soothingly. "Present your capture to us. Go on."

Zim went from pathetic to evilly delighted instantly. "YES!" He bounded back to prod his captive forward. "This, this is the DIB! He was the only resistance that came from his pathetic dirtball, the only EFFECTIVE resistance, that is! In spite of his GARGANTUAN, SMELLY head, he was a worthy enemy of ZIIIIM! Don't be fooled by his stinking, skinny exterior. Under that he's actually rather intelligent!"

Popping up onto his spider legs, Zim skittered over to the human and forced him forward. "KNEEL to your new RULERS, stinky-earth-SLAVE!"

The human staggered forward, his body loose and uncoordinated. He fell to his knees at Zim's jabbing, caught himself with his hands, tried to get back up but was forced down again by the small Irken. This time he stayed there, his face at the hem of Red's robes. Red backed away a little, as discreetly as he could. What a sickly-looking creature. He didn't look threatening or intelligent of effective at all. Of course, Zim could probably be thwarted fairly easily by… cooking utensils, or something.

"Uh-huh, Zim, that's great," Red said. He didn't even try to sound interested. "Now why don't we just turn this… thing… over to some scientists, and then you can go and get a reward, huh."

"YES! Reward!" Zim grinned toothily, backing off to let his captive get up. The creature stumbled to its feet, ungracefully, and looked up at Red.

He found himself taken in by its face, the simple alien ugliness of it. The gashed orifices, the fleshy nose protrusion, and the eyes- big eyes, with white around color, and a big black spot. He smelled too, like he'd been rolling around in dookie without a bath for his whole life. Fascinated and repelled at once, Red drew back. It was a face that he recognized, from not so long ago. It had been smaller then, and rounder, but the essence was still there. He had seen this creature before… "Ugh," he remarked, reaching out one spindly green finger. "Ugly thing, aren't you?" He brushed the tip of his claw, ever so gently, over… the "Dib's" face. Just under his eye. The creature flinched back immediately.

"Don't touch me!"

He looked really ill, tipping back his face from Red's finger. The ruler growled to himself at the creature's insolence and opened his mouth, but Zim beat him to it. "DIB-STINK!" the tiny Irken howled, sounding incensed. "SLAVES should show more RESPECT! You are in the presence of your RULERS!"

He bounded forward, flipping up onto the paklegs again. He grabbed the back of the human's neck with one hand and forced his face forward, until it was just inches from Red's hand.

The tall Irken rolled his eyes. He could easily have taken care of the insubordination himself, but that was Zim for you, always too eager to impress his rulers. In any other Irken it wouldn't have been a flaw but somehow with him things always went wrong.

Of course, soon it would be a total non-issue. The thought brought a grin to his face. He brushed his hand against the human again; ugh, it's skin was too hot and too soft. Like touching a deathly-sick Irken. He traced the cheekbone, ruffled the tiny hairs that fringed his eye. It's lip curled as he did so. There were tiny beads of moisture on it's forehead.

He rolled his eyes. That was probably some instinctive sign of insolence, and thus something that called for punishment. It was kind of sad, how slaves never learned. Their lives would be so much easier if they would learn to be pleasant with their masters. Red drew back his hand very gently and struck the human across the face. It fell without making a noise, except when it's body thumped on the floor.

"Okay," he said casually. Zim was watching the human, his face gone blank for a moment, but he looked back at Red immediately when his leader spoke. "I think I'm done. Bring in the scientists, somebody."

One of the guards departed as the human began to pick himself back up. His face, when he turned back to Red, was ghastly. His whole body shook, in long tremors, a flesh earthquake. The Irkens watched him curiously.

Red scooted backwards quickly when the human fell forward, but not quite quickly enough to avoid being grabbed around his skinny waist. Dib was quite a bit of dead weight. He hung limp for a moment, then made a retching noise. Red smacked him away and looked down in disgust at the mess on his robes. "Okay, that's just nasty," he announced. Purple giggled.

Zim was on the human immediately, kicking him to face upwards and then hitting him repeatedly. The creature made no further resistance; he just curled up his arms to cover his face. Already unhealthy, he was. Red wondered how long he would last in the testing.

"I'm going to get new robes," he announced to Purple. "Why don't you take care of this for now?"

"Okay," Purple said complacently, watching with interest as Zim screamed at the human.

END OF CHAPTER NINE

_Well, now I can claim to have done something productive this weekend. Poor Dib…_

_February 20, 2005._


	10. Growing Pains

Two bulky, armored aliens escorted her to a cell and left her there. The space was small and close and windowless and Gaz, still roiling with sickness, found herself grateful. She pressed herself against the cold floor and let it soothe the fever from her body. She was very tired. It didn't seem worthwhile to struggle against sleep; she would have to rest and regain her energy before she thought of escaping. Or even contemplated needing to escape. This was where she wanted to be, after all… in the company of aliens with the power to stand up to Irkens.

A smile curled her lips. Gaz pushed her face against her hand and rested, eyes burning slightly once they were closed. She listened to her own soft breathing and tried to fool herself into thinking her brother was near.

Gaz remembered distinctly the day she had realized that Dib was a disappointment to her father.

Membrane had brought his kids to a panel of scientists convening in the next city over. The ride was long but neither child was bored; this meeting had taken place before the schism between the siblings. Gaz bubbled with excitement through the entire trip; Dib had been to one of these gatherings before and had enough seniority to be offhand about it.

Once there Membrane picked each of them up in one arm and walked into the building. It was chilly inside and very quiet. The auditorium booked for Membrane's speech smelled a bit musty and was already full of people. Shuffles and whispers went through the crowd when they saw the scientist and his children.

Two chairs and a podium were set up on the stage. Membrane sat Dib and Gaz next to each other in the chairs and ruffled Dib's hair gently. "Both of you be good," he said. Gaz ducked her head shyly and began to suck on her thumb. Dib stared curiously out at the crowd.

The scientists quieted down as Membrane approached the podium and tapped gently at the microphone, assuring himself it was in working order. Then he began to speak.

The introduction and thanks flowed over both children. Gaz didn't listen but Dib propped up his chin on his hands and watched his father. When Membrane started talking about them he nudged his sister and they both sat up attentively.

"Gaz's development has been a major success," Membrane boomed proudly. "She is intelligent and already shows signs of being able to control the powers she's been given. She is more successful than her brother in her manipulation of them; physical objects respond to her will. They are especially developed in the control of mechanical devices; I've observed her animating the test toys she's been given. Gaz also shows extreme proficiency in hand-eye coordination and dedication to tasks. Dib still surpasses her in spatial intelligence but I feel sure that as she grows she will close the gap."

Dib turned and smiled at his sister brightly. Gaz turned up her lips just a little at him, her eyes sliding back to the crowd. Everyone seemed to be watching her, and their gazes were almost a physical weight. She didn't like it.

Membrane began speaking again after a short pause where an attendant offered him a small glass of water. Gaz and Dib both took their own glasses and then turned their attention back to their father.

"Dib's development, on the other hand, seems to have stalled somewhat," Membrane said. "He does not yet have control over his powers; they seem to come forth erratically, mostly during times of emotional duress. Sometimes they do not even manifest at that point. Dib is highly intelligent; he has been tested in math, science, writing, and reading and his scores are all exceptionally high for a child his age. He is slightly less persistent than his sister, but not significantly so. He is highly sensitive and intuitive to the feelings of others as well. Dib is also unquenchably curious, an asset that his sister lacks."

Dib looked a little uncertain now. He still smiled at his sister but his eyes had dimmed somewhat at hearing his father pass judgment on his development. When Membrane began to speak well of him again he looked a little more cheerful.

Membrane bowed his head a little and took a sip of the water that had been left at the podium. His voice was smooth and calm when he spoke again. "However, there appear to be some problems with Dib. He experiences constant, strong hallucinations, which are visual, auditory, and sometimes even tactile. He attributes these visions to the presence of ghosts, vampires, evil spirits and the like, and he was spreading the fear of these visions to Gaz before the monitor stepped in to quell him."

Gaz looked very quickly at her brother. She remembered very strongly Dib's infectious fear, and what he claimed was there, and didn't care for the memory at all. The boy himself had gone white and looked ashamed, with tears shimmering at the edges of his eyes. He slipped his hand around hers and squeezed a little. She pulled her hand away.

"In light of the fact that these creatures cannot possibly be real, I've concluded that Dib has a mental imbalance," Membrane continued. "I suggest that he be put on medication from schizophrenia as soon as a diagnosis can be confirmed. Other than that he is healthy, energetic, and intelligent. It is unfortunate that a subject as successful as Dib must suffer from this, but with the proper medication the symptoms can be entirely erased and he will be able to resume normal function. I will now take questions on the experiment."

Gaz jumped as someone tapped her on the shoulder, and looked up into the kindly face of an attendant. "This could go on for a while," the young man said. "Would you two like to come and have some food? We ordered pizza and there's soda too."

Gaz didn't need to be asked twice and promptly hopped down from her seat. Dib slid down after her and they both followed the man who had talked to them.

Two hours later, Membrane came out to them wearily. He picked at a slice of cheese pizza as Gaz clambered onto his lap. "Well, the questioning went well," he told them both. "Dib, we'll get you checked up at a psychiatrist, and start you up on the medicine as soon as possible." His eyes crinkled up and he looked suddenly very cheerful. "Hah, they doubted me at first, but when they see these results they'll have to increase my funding!"

Dib looked away awkwardly, turning his glass round and round in his hands. He was mad at his dad for saying mean things about him to so many people and he hated taking medicine. "Dad," he blurted, "do I have to take medicine?" He looked at the older scientist quickly, just a glance. His eyes were pleading. "I don't like it. I don't want to. I won't see things anymore if I don't have to."

Gaz felt her father sit up very straight under her. "Now, son!" the man admonished. "This is nothing to be ashamed of! If the medication will help you, then you will take it."

He held up a finger as Dib opened his mouth to protest. "There are no arguments to be made, son!"

Dib flushed, very slowly, and looked down. Gaz put her thumb in her mouth again and sucked contentedly. Membrane hadn't said anything bad about _her_. _She_ didn't need medicine.

The hotel room that night was very quiet without Dib's chatter. He sat very quietly by the window instead, looking up and out, and Gaz knew he was thinking crazy things.

Once upon a time she might have gone to sit with him, and asked for stories. But things changed, and the world moved, and she knew that she was the success and he was the defective, no matter what medicine could do.

END OF CHAPTER 10

_Meant mostly to explain where the schism between sibs came from. I don't think this justifies Gaz's behavior but maybe it explains it a little._

_March 26, 2005_


	11. Alone on a Darkling Plain

Red was back to watch Dib go. He stood behind Zim with Purple, and undoubtedly the two of them flicked messages to each other. Zim hardly even took a moment to wonder what they were saying to each other; he only had eyes for his human.

The guards were shoving Dib around a little more than was strictly necessary, especially considering that the human wasn't resisting. They were tormenting him in a dozen tiny ways: dragging sharp-filed claws across his tender skin as they snapped shackles onto his thin wrists, pinching him hard as they cuffed him at his ankles. They had seen his disrespect for their Tallest and it had not pleased them.

Dib himself looked miserable and not any better after vomiting. His skin had a thin sheen of sweat; Zim wondered if it was from illness or from the fate he was imagining for himself. The wormbaby had a frighteningly vivid imagination. Zim knew that from first-hand experience. He thought that Dib was probably regretting it now. It would be better not to think of what was coming.

Eventually the guards herded him to the teleport pad set at the center of the room. Dib stood there looking pale and cowed and miserable. His hands hung in front of him pathetically. He looked like a wet, miserable bird, with feathers flat from fear. Zim caught his eye and was shocked at the depth of it. Dib, at eleven, had been amazingly easy to read if you knew how to look; his eyes and posture and the quirks of his mouth told volumes and gave away secrets. As he had grown, though, his face gone narrower, sharper, and hadn't spoken as easily. It had been, Zim remembered, disappointing.

Now that same vulnerability was back. The deepness to the eyes, the sad half-open mouth, were features he remembered from when Dib was eleven and still hopeful, still bursting with passion.

They looked at each other. It was goodbye.

A moment later the human disappeared in a crackle of pink energy. He had been given to the research vessel named Proby, Zim knew; a fairly low-ranking ship. It was close to the edge of the cloud of ships that surrounded the Massive. It offended him slightly. Dib was the most dangerous enemy Zim had ever faced… he deserved better.

Zim lifted his hands slowly, turned the palms to where Dib had stood. He clenched his fists- _I still have you_…

Then he let them go, slowly. His hands were empty now. He thought… _what next?_

Zim jumped as guards surrounded him. They were all taller than he was, and it was difficult to see over their heads, but standing on tiptoes he could just see Red and Purple. The crimson-clad Tallest waved to him cheerily. "We've got something _special_ planned for _you,_ Zim! Just go with the guards!"

The small Invader had no chance to respond as the surrounding Irkens began to push at him. He hissed and jabbed with his elbows and managed to extract a small amount of personal space for himself. "What are you doing? Do not crowd ZIM!" he howled indignantly. There was no way he could see the eager, hungry glances Red and Purple traded. Even if he had he wouldn't have taken note of the danger.

No one spoke to him or looked at him, although they gave him a little bit of space. Zim growled to himself irritably. Well, they would regret it when they saw how the Tallest favored him. He wondered what his next post would be, if they would assign him to scout for vulnerable planets as potential targets for Operation Impending Doom Three. That wouldn't be so bad…

It took a long time to reach the auditorium. The place was packed to the brim with screaming Irkens and recording equipment. The guards thrust their way brutally through the crowd, making for a raised platform at the far end of the room. Zim was no help at making progress; he only had eyes for the crowd. He jumped to see them and waved his hands furiously and lunged for the spaces between his escort. It did not occur to him to be surprised at the fuss being made over him; it was all that he had expected.

Red and Purple were already there, waiting on the platform. Behind them, hunched and gleaming, were five control brains. The light flashed on their photosensors.

It took a few minutes, but the guards managed to force their way through the roaring audience. One of them simply picked Zim up and thrust him upwards and over the edge. He scrambled the rest of the way on his own, lashing out to kick the guard in the eye deliberately. The taller Irken turned his face away but Zim's boot still punched the delicate membrane painfully inwards. When he turned back there was murder on his face and his purple eye was beginning to swell and glisten with fluid. Zim smiled down at him condescendingly.

He turned to the crowd and flung his head back to receive their screams and benediction. He smiled. The sound blasted everything dirty and uncertain out of his head, wiping away the uncertainty and improper shame to replace it with jubilation. This was everything he had wanted from his victory. Not the blur of emotions and the feeling of emptiness, but… this.

Unseen by Zim, Red flicked his spindly fingers at the guards. The squad split, circled behind the platform, and stood in the spaces between the brains. The guard Zim had kicked ran his claws gently under his injured eye, glaring at the smaller Irken's back.

Red glanced around, noting the positions of his soldiers. His spindly green fingers twitched minutely; the head soldier immediately took note of his nonverbal cues and directed her troops to close around Zim with a quick series of hand signals.

The Invader was startled to feel hands close around his upper arms, and was incensed to find himself being dragged backwards across the platform. He struggled fiercely, stabbing his elbows backwards and kicking. "Hey! HEY! How DARE you lay hands on the person of ZIIIIM! The Tallest will punish you for this! I will see your PAKS liquefied for this!"

They set him on his feet before the control brains, hands conspicuously close to their weapons. Zim tried to edge back towards the crowd and was held at bay with the electrified prongs of a taser.

Red flitted around them to the front of the stage and held up his arms, gesturing for silence. Abruptly the crowd quieted, encouraged by the security robots firing lasers into their midst. Even the guards by Zim stood to attention. Zim himself, still irate, looked about and began to sneak towards the front again.

"Loyal Irkens soldiers and civilians," Red began jovially. "You are here to witness a most happy occasion. Today, the Irken who has long been a thorn in the side of the Irken Empire will be crushed! We have before us the infamous Invader ZIM!"

It was short and sweet; Red knew that the Irkens were hungry for destruction and that postponing the matter too much could only lead to trouble. The audience erupted in a cacophony of screams, shouts and boos. Red glided smoothly back, grinning to himself. It was the end at last.

Zim, as ever, tuned out the harsh words that sealed his fate. Hopping forward once more he evaded Red's startled grab to wave both arms furiously at the crowd. "Thank you, thank you!" he screamed. "ZIIIIM is PLEASED to be the object of your ADORATION-"

Behind him Purple smacked his palm against his forehead. Red clenched his teeth and gestured the guards forward before Zim could say anything else. The small Invader was dragged scrabbling and screaming back to stand between the control brains.

No one had the chance to speak again, because the control brains went into motion at once. Thick cables snapped from open hatches to connect to ports in Zim's pak. A white nimbus of energy spread around them and his tiny body spasmed, then fell limp, like a drowned kitten.

What the audience did not see was this:

Zim was being torn, shredded, his mind hacked into pieces and turned over and over. The security on his pak had given way to the massive power and authority that the control brains held. It was programmed in all Irkens that the security codes on the pak should give way before their commands, and this was what happened now.

Zim's mind spun into insane darkness, crying weakly, not understanding. He had no idea why this was happening to him. He felt a part of himself, a memory, be flayed away into from him and examined; and in his mind he worried at the hole it left like a dog would chew its stitches. _What? _He wailed into the emptiness around him. _Why is this being done to Ziiiiim! Why do you destroy your loyal soldier!_

The control brains did not respond to him directly. Zim could sense them though, like Dib believed humans could sense ghosts; he could feel the flicker-flash of information passing from brain to brain. –_species sympathies- _he caught, and _–Deep hormone imbalance- Uuncorrected by pak- Query: why? –Response: integral hardware damage- unsalvageable -Decision?_

_Decision?_

He understood that judgment was being passed, although he did not understand why.

_Termination…_

And he felt himself pulled, funneled, shot down a dark tunnel. All his thoughts were crunched down into a pulp and then pulled again, so thin that everything he was thinking was visible, distorted and hideous. He was reliving things, fights, encounters- he was straining desperately to live- he was hallucinating too, remembering things that had never happened. He had wanted so much to devour Dib, to consume everything that made the human himself, to hold him close forever. Now Zim was being eaten himself. He clutched at the streamers of himself, screaming, raging. _No, no, no, you cannot do this- you cannot do this- I am… I am Zim!_

The brain that had taken his data was not listening. He could feel parts of himself detaching, could feel emptiness encroaching where once he had had memory. He wanted it back, he wanted everything back. He wanted all of the ugliness and the hate and the losses. He wanted his victories. He wanted Dib back.

He wanted… he wanted…

_Humans were so good at killing each other. So fucking good at it. It had surprised him, to see how good they were. He couldn't have been better at it if he tried. He couldn't have been better than them if everyone in the world had come before him and knelt at his feet and allowed him to fire a laser through their brains. And so it had been so easy, so God damn EASY, to just let them do it once they started; just to keep their pathetic war rolling, just to twist the alliances and pile kindling on the rising conflicts, just to keep the peace from ever being made. It had been so EASY to make the human race destroy itself that he had wondered how he had ever missed the obviousness of it. He watched them slaughter each other and whooped with joy at the effectiveness of it. And then when it was over he thought…_

_What now?_

He wanted…

_Who?_

Irkens were not supposed to fight death, at least not when it was dispensed by their superiors. They were creatures that ceded control of everything to those higher than them in the chain of command, and the average Irken would give his life with as much grace as he could if it was what his leaders demanded. And they demanded it, constantly; they killed the worst and the best in their race, the gentle idiots and the idealists and the artists and every other exceptional personality that squeezed through the screening the paks went through at assembly. Zim was not ordinary; he had never been. He had been shaking the system since he was first animated and he had never stopped; now he did his level best to keep himself alive, with the mad rage of an animal fighting death. He screamed his name madly again and again to the control brain that was dispassionately filing him away. He had imagined so much more for himself than this. By the end, he had lost his name and he had stopped imagining anything.

The crowds, rioting, cheered his death. Red and Purple laughed, slapped each other roughly on their shoulders, screamed with joy until they were out of breathe. It was finally, finally over.

END OF CHAPTER 11

_The end of the story is far from near…_

_May 13, 2005_


	12. Owning the Last

Lard Nar glared suspiciously at the creature in front of him, hunching forward in his squishy chair to get a better look at it. Skinny, soft-looking pale thing it was; built on the symmetrical body plan that was roughly a common standard in this sector of the galaxy arm. Pretty unexciting looks, really, except for a seeming surplus of orifices.

Except it had arrived in a ship of Irken make; strange and modified, to be sure, but still recognizably Irken. The skill of a creature that obtained a ship from the formidable Irken fleet must be impressive; that or it was a stooge to the Irken or an alien body hosting an Irken mind. Either way it could potentially be useful, but he had to find out what it _was_ first.

He worked his claws nervously into the giving fabric on his chair. The alien he was interrogating stared back at him impassively with ochre-colored eyes. Apparent docility gave the Vortian confidence. "What's your rank?" he snapped. "Where did you get an Irken ship? Why are you _traveling_ through Irken territory?"

And in a slightly grating voice, the alien answered all of his questions, giving clarification where it was demanded and background information that could easily be verified and put to good use by the Resisty.

Or that was how it would have gone in an ideal world.

_Instead,_ Lard Nar found himself torn violently out of the chair and _slammed_ back brutally into the metal wall with his feet dangling a few feet above the floor.

He gasped and gagged and clutched at the hard fingers digging into his throat. It was already hard to move his arms; Irken torture had caused severe nerve damage which had never quite healed and now the delicate nerves were being _pinched_. It left him with involuntary twitches and the occasion spastic fit at the best of times, and under pressure, his entire system could collapse. Was beginning to collapse now.

Through a haze of agony Lard Nar heard the chatter and tumult of his panicked subordinates. A more pressing matter was that he was being shaken now, a little, so that his twitching body swung back and forth a bit. "Shut up and listen to me, ALL of you!" the creature holding him snarled in a grating voice. "I had something I was doing, a person I was looking for, and _you've_ all stopped me from doing it!"

It whirled around and slammed Lard Nar back into the gel-filled cushioning in his seat. He sank back and back and back until the padding almost engulfed him. The pressure on his throat lessened very slightly and the Vortian's body began to spasm, skinny arms flailing. He blinked painfully. Hot, angry eyes glared into his. "My _name_ is Gaz," the alien growled. "I don't _have_ a rank. I'm _here _to get back my stupid brother from the shithead Irken who _stole_ him, and you're all _delaying_ me."

"So you know what?" the alien… Gaz… continued. Everyone was arrayed around them tensely, and out of the corner of his eye Lard Nar could Spleenk, crouched and rocking tensely, gnawing furiously on his spindly fingers. Gaz shook him again, not hard but with a feeling of barely contained homicidal violence. "You know what? I think I should just kill you _all_, right here, because I might not be able to catch Zim now and _something_ needs to die for that."

Lard Nar rolled his head from side to side as best he could. The gel in the cushions oozed to the sides a little more, widening the small ditch that his head rested in. "Wait," he said. "No, no, wait!" Gaz looked back down at him and Lard Nar thought rapidly. A few seconds ago he had had something important in his head but now it was gone, skittered off into a far dusty corner.

"Do you _ever_ stop talking?" Gaz asked him. Lard Nar gobbled and gasped and finally grasped what he had lost.

"You can't go against the Armada alone," he said. "It's impossible, impossible to stand against the Irkens without allies. Especially if you're heading into the Massive's sweep! That's just crazy!"

He hoped he wouldn't get killed for that. He hoped the alien would consider it. Gaz seemed to be thinking on it, at least; and Lard Nar watched it, hoping. With an Irken ship (stolen?) and driven by the ferocity it had already displayed, this alien might actually be able to force itself into the highly secure area patrolled by the Armada. Maybe. He hoped it wouldn't realize that. However, it would _definitely_ be impossible to launch a stealthy, secure rescue mission without detection. Lard Nar hoped it _wanted_ a secure rescue mission, and not just a suicidal blaze of glory.

"I see," Gaz said, quieter than before, its voice beginning to smooth and lose inflection. Thoughtful sounding, maybe. "Teamwork? An alliance? Is that your bright idea?" That sounded contemptuous; not such a good sign.

"In your ship…" Lard Nar babbled. "The small size… no significant weapons… it would easily fall before even a small warship of the Armada!"

"I could do it," Gaz said coldly. "I don't much feel like teaming up with a bunch of idiots. My brother will be bad enough when I get him."

It sounded like it was thinking about it, at least. Its fingers hadn't gotten any tighter. Lard Nar risked another verbal prod, as sharp as he dared. "And then…? When your brother… is found? The Irken," he said. "The Irken that you wanted. You'll need allies, reinforcements to find him. It could take a thousand years to find one Irken in the entire Empire."

"Not this one," Gaz replied quietly. Its voice was very soft but it was underscored with a terrible resolve, a determination that would wrap around anything as weak as mere flesh and slice into it like steel cable. "This one will stick out. And I never need help for _anything._"

The Vortian found himself released very suddenly. He hadn't been expecting it at all, with the way the conversation had been going, and so he was still for a few seconds while Gaz crouched before him, arms folded, waiting impatiently. It was difficult to get up with pain still scintillating down his limbs- pins and needles multiplied one hundred times- but he managed, spurred on by crazed urgency, the same vital energy that had bolstered him through forming and maintaining the fractious, erratic, flighty Resisty. His troops surrounded him, engulfed him and moved him away from Gaz. All of the Resisty members moved away from Gaz, in fact, filtering away from the new "recruit" as fast as they reasonably could.

Gaz padded after them all quietly. It moved with a quiet that was uncanny, sticking to the shadows, and blended in well for a creature so pale. Lard Nar wondered where it had gotten the Irken suit, the Irken ship. He wondered, in fact, what gender it was; a he or a she or truly and it, like the Meekrob, which simply divided themselves when a proper agitation of cells had been reached; or if it was one of those species where thirty-two different genders were needed for a new one to be produced. He wondered if he had doomed the Resisty to pledging aide (sort of) to this creature. He took the gamble he had taken with every new recruit and hoped to win.

Or at least break even.

At the corridor he paused to wait for it; and stiffened when it seemed to materialize at his shoulder. He managed to relax fractionally after a moment and walked with Gaz.

He thought that his release indicated a tacit agreement to working together but he asked anyway, jittering: "We are agreed, then? For now you will ally with us?"

Gaz paused for a moment, and then replied. "All right."

Human and Vortian paced down the corridor together, Gaz allowing herself to fall behind slightly. She could tell it put Lard Nar on edge to have her behind him and she rather enjoyed the feeling. The Resisty leader reminded her of Dib, in a crazy, comforting, irritating kind of way: they had the same drive, the same uncontainable nervous energy. It was hard to remember not to fall into the old harsh pattern of insults and intimidation because even if she didn't _need_ Lard Nar his forces could come in handy, at least. On that count she was already failing; she would have to learn to remember that he wasn't someone she needed to threaten.

Gaz peeled a flake of dried skin off her lower lip, using her teeth. It exposed the tender layer below and brought the taste of blood to her mouth, and she winced at it. Lard Nar glanced up at her with a tic under his eye. "When do you want to go?" he asked. "The Irkens won't suspect, they don't _ever_ think that they can be attacked, but if they find out we're there they'll come down on us like a pack of rat people on a box of yummy nuggets-"

"I don't care," Gaz interrupted. "Soon, that's all. I want it to be soon. I want to get my brother out alive."

"Brother," Lard Nar said vaguely. "A male littermate, yes? I had several."

Gaz was silent, uncomfortable. _I don't want to know this about you. I don't care at all about you. Why are you telling me this?_

"Ahh," the Vortian seemed to shake himself, regaining his equilibrium slightly. "But soon, yes, of course, as soon as we can get the ships ready." The turned together into a room on the left, and Gaz recognized the long gullets of teleport tubes from what she had seen in Zim's base. The design was very similar.

They stepped onto the triggering pads, Lard Nar first and Gaz immediately afterwards. Bodies converted into crackling pink beams of energy, which were hurled, refracted, and reassembled by lenses in one of the other long boxy ships floating nearby. Gaz stumbled slightly, assaulted by a sudden wave of dizziness, like being back on land after gaining sea legs. She hoped Lard Nar hadn't noticed. When the bright spots dissolved from in front of her eyes she looked over the hangar: high ceiling, brightly lit, mostly empty. The Spittle Runner, an old friend, sat in one corner. It had been gutted: all the hardware was pulled out, long tails of wire leading back towards the ship. The wires had been severed though, quite neatly; apparently to stop Tak's personality from taking over the ship and wreaking havoc. Gaz felt hot, then very cold again. The Spittle Runner was probably the best ship in here. None of the whole ships looked as good: they were scrappy, patched, scarred. Probably some of them had over the course of the years been replaced entirely with new parts. They were a lean and hungry-looking bunch of ships: scavengers. Gaz thought them over and bit the inside of her cheek, considering.

None of them could pass as even remotely Irken. Lard Nar gave her a nervous glance and skittered out between the ships, his feet going tic-tic against the floor. His voice echoed against the strutted walls. "Possibly, these could be of some use- a distraction maybe, or reinforcements if you were discovered…"

Gaz thought, _he's nervous. He's not a complete idiot._ She also thought, _I can make this more. I can make everything that's here so much greater. I can use these aliens. The entire Irken race deserves to suffer and I can use these aliens to make them do that._

She was possibly one of the last free people of her race. But all of them were the last of their race, here; and she thought she could make them her own.

END OF CHAPTER 12

7/11/2005

_Many thanks to the lovely Red Crow for her beta-ing._


	13. Edge

From the outside, it was over.

Erasure was a final and definative death. Most Irkens took it with grace. Soldiers slated for deletion, seeing or knowing too much, bowed to the verdict of the control brains without a whimper. For the Empire. Stoic and calm. Cows to the slaughter.

No one had ever expected something like _Zim._

He went down kicking, screaming, writing miles and miles of code in seconds, all of it making one sum: _protect yourself. Live. LIVE._ He was the greatest and most uniquely twisted defective ever to live, and in death this served him well – for once. It made him slippery. Hard to catch. His meatbrain was where his wild brilliance came from, and it had been liquified a few minutes ago, but he was still left with a lunatic mechanical genius and right now, right _now_ impending doom had honed his mind to razor-sharp focus.

For all the fight in him he was losing. The Control Brains had a processing power many times greater than his. They had numbers on their side. Zim was being stripped and grated away in little shreds, in tiny memories. GIR stuffing himself with hotdogs – the picture was snatched, ripped away, gone to pieces. Zim leeched on to it frantically, grabbing for the shards that were left of it. His minion – green dog suit – the overwhelming smell of cold meat–

Dib. Another memory. Falling down to his knees when someone shoved him. Yelping. Glasses fell off, and Zim picked them up, twisted frail metal frames in his claws – but _who? Where? When? _Dib, who was Dib, what did he mean anyway –

_No! _Zim roared to the world in general. He grabbed it back. He clung with iron resistance. _No, no, NO! The Dib is MINE, no one takes or TOUCHES HIM, he belongs to ME, I MADE HIM! He's mine!_

Dib, the memory, he fell down and – and that's where the glasses came from, the glasses you brought home, remember, Zim? That's where they came from. You took them from him because you could and – that's where they came from. Dib is your enemy. Dib is your enemy. He was the strongest cleverest enemy ever. He was _yours_. He had a gravity well that came from that stupid huge head of his. And it kind of pulled people in. He was worth it, all the time given to him, all the hate – none of them could take that. None of them were _allowed._

He lashed back at them with viruses, coded on the fly. The Control Brains' coordinated their attacks, delegating tasks with cold-mercury speed, but the viruses made them glitch and stumble on each other. Zim screamed raw victory and bungled up the Brains' code further. He yowled again when one of them caught him unawares, snipped off vital information from his mind and scattered it into binary confetti.

Zim was fighting the good fight. He couldn't fight it forever. He was outnumbered and outgunned. Somewhere he knew this.

So when he saw the opening, he took it.

A reprieve seemed too good to be true. It probably was.

Firewalls scorched him. Zim lashed around them like a plague, searching for weaknesses and then rushing them, enraged. He had noticed the barest chink in the defenses of one Control Brain, defenses that were usually impenetrable. In desperation he'd taken that bare offering of a chance, and now, now, the world defied him again….

_I am ZIM!_ he screamed at the indifferent walls, but it was a lie, now. Without the identity code and his name written into the data packet that made up his personality, he wasn't Zim. He wasn't anyone. He had no identity. In the eyes of the Irken Empire he was a virus to be eradicated at the first chance.

It was very quiet.

…………

Dib woke stretched out on his belly with the acrid tang of chemicals in his mouth and his eyes gummed. His body felt twisted-up and strange, stiff, not entirely natural. Uncomfortable. He was uncomfortable.

Some inner trigger stopped him from rolling onto his back. He flopped onto his side instead, curling up slightly, his mind still caught in what seemed a delirious, horrible dream. The metal under him was hard and offered no comfort; it hadn't even warmed with his body heat, he could feel that when he touched it with an open palm. Maybe it was because of the suit he still wore: it was reflecting all his heat back into his body, so only his hands and face were clammy-cold. Dib swiped at his bleary, gummy eyes and hair.

He got up slowly and carefully, looking around. He was basically in a cube, five paces in each direction, opaque walls, no discernable light source. No visible horrible torture devices. The ceiling was only a few inches above his head and Dib flinched a little when he felt his spiky hair brush it.

When he stretched, his lower back didn't seem to flex very well. Dib felt a raw shiver of nausea run up from his belly and he leaned against a nearby wall, shaking. After a few minutes he got a grip on himself and stood straight again. He walked in a circle.

He felt, very horribly, that there was something just beyond his reach that in a few minutes he would comprehend, and in a childlike way he didn't want too. It was like the feeling he got in nightmares, where a realization was looming on the horizon with inevitable, terrifying force and all he bowed his head and did his best to ignore it hoping desperately that not acknowledging the finishing blow would divert it. Very much, this was something he wanted to put off; he didn't want to see it, he didn't want to know, he didn't want to think about it, he wanted to curl up and sleep again, maybe for forever...

He felt intensely dizzy. Spots swelled up and burst in front of his eyes. Dib shook and shivered and slowly, slowly, he twisted his arm around to feel his lower back...

His fingers brushed over a gently curving plastic-metal dome that was flush with his skin at its edge.

END 13

_Oodles and oodles of thanks plus megaloves go to J. Random Lurker and lael adair, who made so many suggestions on this chapter and sat with me for positively hours correcting things, respectively. You guys rock my socks._

_Sorry for the long wait. I was stuck for the longest time on this chapter. And now it's updated, and even if it's a short one at least it's here, right?_

_Also, I keep forgetting to mention that the awesome Red Crow has done fanart for this fic. Look after you read this and I'll link her pieces in my profile. They're SO good, seriously._


	14. Game On

Gaz meandered around the ship bays and control rooms, uncontainably restless. She couldn't bear the constant tizzy that was organizing the Resisty. Action was her strongest point, and after that, planning – nowhere in her was the capacity for wasting time.

Unfortunately, that seemed to be what everyone _else_ was good at.

There was no one that she wanted to talk to, and no one that wanted to talk to her. Eventually, in a fit of churning boredom verging on mild despair, she found her way to the ship bay where her Spittle Runner was being repaired.

It had been a fight to ensure that the ship would be fixed. The Resisty was insanely suspicious of a ship that held an Irken's mind, which was understandable, truly, but Gaz still wasn't in any mood to tolerate argument on the decisions she had made (And did she miss Tak? Maybe a little – the Irken understood her, both of them ugly and struggling against a world that aligned itself to oppose them). Uncharacteristically, she wouldn't have minded talking to Tak right now, indulging in a good argument or insult-fest.

Abruptly, the human recognized her own mood – it was the same feeling that came with a tough new videogame. A challenge to be overcome. Gaz chuckled. _Game on_. _Yes…_

She sat down and watched the aliens clustered over her ship. They were efficient, she'd give them that, even with the tall, unfriendly newcomer glaring down at them – she thought of termites blindly obeying their queen. _Yes_. This was the way things should be.

A cloaked alien with glowing red eyes picked up a databank and inserted it back into the proper place. Wires dangled under it like a bridal train. The Irken computer parts were beautiful; they looked like explosions of ice and color, insane abstract sculptures. Or, alternately, Tetris pieces from Hell. Gaz laughed again.

Startling – to realize that she was actually looking forward to seeing Dib again. Was excited for the reunion. She could hardly remember what it was like to be with him, and at the same time it was unimaginable to think of going on without him. She wanted, she demanded another human - that was all. She needed someone to remind her where she was… and who. The possibility of his death had touched her mind and skipped off of it, like a stone across water. There was no revelation and no grief. On some level, she was certain, she would have _known_ if Dib had died. Even if he was miles away.

She would just have known.

Gaz thought of explosions, blooming fire-flowers in the black chasm that was space. She could feel her heart beating faster, thud-thump, thud-thump, like the repeated slamming of a door. Valves pulsing open and closed, the heavy cardiac muscle spasming, doing its best to keep going. She brought up one hand to her breast and felt the delicate fluttering vibration for a moment, thinking of injured birds. "Weak," she said, for some inconceivable reason.

One of the aliens looked up at her for a moment, and then away.

Gaz smirked. She was going to start talking to herself, like Dib. She thought nostalgically of him, for a moment; of the pastel-bloody blur that was their childhood together. Nothing stood out as especially happy, or even especially horrible, but it had been good, right? It had been what she needed, Dib and Dad, Dad and Dib, that was all, the three of them in their own microcosm. Dib versus the world and Gaz behind Dib.

She remembered:

_A hot day, a good day. Walking home from school with Dib, skipping over the cracks. He's just in third grade, which is very young to be seeing his sister and himself safely home, but it's what he's always done. (Daddy – because he was Daddy then – could send someone to drive them, but, oh, they are as safe as baby rabbits in their hole, they are as innocent and as gentle as fawns, who would touch them?). The pavement is drenched and soaked and sheeting with sun._

_They hold hands. Dib's palm is soft and a little slippery; he is biting back his long eight-year-old stride in consideration for her shorter legs. He looks far away, eyeing the corners, cars, the people passing. Gaz watches their feet and makes sure they skip the sidewalk cracks (because that is how it is, that is always how things are, Dib the sentinel outward-watcher and Gaz who holds the fort. They are different, opposite, complimentary). It is Dib who steers them left up the little walk to their house, because Gaz is not paying attention – if he were not there she would just keep walking until she went off the edge of the earth._

_Inside the house it is dim and cave like. Gaz shakes her brother off and sighs, making for the kitchen – she has in mind a certain can of soda, ice cold and sweet. Father says it isn't good for little girl bones but she gets her way because she gets her way because she gets her way… Daddy's little princess._

_There are voices in the kitchen and this is what first alerts her that something about this day is different. A chubby blonde woman, wearing tweed and pantyhose, sits across the kitchen table from the Father; Gaz stops, stalk-still, and watches them with the tenacity of a snake. What is this intruder doing here?_

_Dib is behind her, somehow, without her knowing how he got there._

_The adults look up at them; heads rising from hunched postures and twisting simultaneously. "Children," Membrane says. He sounds strained and at seven years old it is a sound that Gaz cannot identify. It is impossible for her to imagine her Father as anything less than the master of everything he surveys. "Is it time for you to be out of school?"_

"_We had a half-day today," Dib says, part earnest, part reproachful. He would like his Father to remember these things. "So we're out early. We gotta eat lunch here."_

_The woman turns and looks at the scientist. There is a tense silence. "Well, then," Membrane says. "Make yourselves something healthy. Ensure that it contains ample representatives from both the vegetable and fruit groups."_

_Dib cocks his head and walks around Gaz, measuring out a precise bubble of space around her form. There is leftover pizza in the fridge. Dib stacks pieces up on a clean plate. Gaz notes with a sudden burst of feeling that from the fridge he removes a soda – her soda – and cracks it open._

"_We'll share," Dib says to her, before she can do anything. He scrambles onto the counter and pulls out two tall cups, and divides the soda with microscopic exactness between them._

_Membrane and his guest track the children across the room, like rotating security cameras – Dib ushers his sister upstairs, closing the door behind them. He runs into the bathroom, and pours his soda down the sink's drain. Voices are swelling up from the kitchen again, Membrane's tone immediately distinct, grinding like glaciers rubbing up together. Gaz chugs her drink in giant gulps. The gas bloats her stomach and she forces up one burp, then another – then good. "Come on," Dib says, and he patters past her and quietly back down the stairs, where the door at the bottom is closed. Immediately he places his empty glass against the wood. Gaz slips up next to him and does the same._

" – _couldn't you even get the cups out for him?" _

_The woman is talking. She has a low, throaty voice. "He's only eight years old, professor. Small for his age as well, from the looks of it."_

"_Don't underestimate him." Membrane, now. "You can't begin to imagine what those two children might become, doctor. You can't do this to me now. Things are going so well –"_

"_He's only eight years old!" Her voice pitches higher. "The girl's a year younger, am I right? I'm right, yes? They're just children, professor!"_

"_Already they show potential," Membrane argues. "You haven't been here, you haven't seen them like I have. It's amazing – their development. Dib is slightly unstable but he's intelligent! He has a vivid imagination, but I can turn that to more useful things. Gaz is astounding. Her hand-eye coordination, her strategic planning, she's everything we were looking for –"_

"_You're not listening, professor." Her voice gone cold. "They are just. CHILDREN. The war is over! I know this project is valuable to you, but at this point there is no longer demand for subjects with their… assets. The war is OVER. I don't know how you could have missed it."_

_BANG, and Dib jumped – Gaz imagined her Father slapping the table, actually expressing anger. "You don't understand! You don't, none of you, understand what we've done – these children will bring us a new future! Dib is an idealist, he has all the signs, and Gaz – when she grows up there will be nothing like her. Don't write them off –"_

"_Professor," the woman says. "Membrane." She sounds weary. "Understand, this is important to us, of course – but we've lost it, understand? The bigwigs don't want to deal with it anymore. They were always squeamish about playing around with humans. I'm sorry, but the funding has been cut, and that's it. No more argument."_

_There was a long silence._

"_And Dib and Gaz?" Membrane said finally._

"_What do you think?"_

"_I want them." He said it flatly. "I don't care if the funding is gone. I can still – "_

"_Don't say anything," she said. "I don't want to know. And I won't say anything, either."_

_After a long, sullen moment, shuffling came from the kitchen room, retreating in the direction of the door. _

_Dib tapped Gaz's arm and she flinched, then turned to glare at him. He stared at her, looking pale. "That's all," he mouthed. "Come on before Dad comes."_

_They held a conference of war in Dib's room – he looked drawn, pale, only picking at his cold pizza. "They were talking about us," he said._

"_Mmph." Gaz took picky bite of her own slice of pizza. "So?"_

"_So, something about funding!" He dropped his food back on the plate, hurled up onto his feet and paced the room, corner to dark corner. "Maybe they're aliens, and we're being monitored to see how humans grow up. Maybe Dad can't afford to have us around anymore and we'll be sent to India and forced to work in carpet factories. Maybe we should run away and – "_

"_That's stupid," Gaz snapped. His frenetic energy was throwing her off. "She said he'd get to keep us. So what?"_

"_Yeah." Dib paused, and his face was ridiculously dramatic – looking back, he seemed hilariously adult and calculating. "So… what?"_

…

Gaz smiled slightly, without knowing it. He was already paranoid – even then. Her eyes stung and she rubbed at them absently.

"Gaz-human?" Lard Nar said, in the kind of voice that suggested he'd said her name at least three times. She hadn't even heard him come up: Gaz flinched backwards, jerked upright and glared on reflex. The Vortian backed away. He'd already been far from normal striking distance. Good, he was scared; it would keep him in line. She grunted a nasty little laugh.

"What is it, you?" she said, and looking over him, she thought she already knew – the ship standing ready, some claw-hooked and graceful predator. Her thumbs twitched. _Yes_.

He eyed her beadily. Wary, wary, and for a good reason - ! Gaz felt good. Clean, well-oiled. Better than she had in days. Ready to go, yeah, ready for…!

And she was on her feet, right away, lunging forwards, barely able to restrain herself to stay with the little alien pacing along beside her tic-tic-tic-tic on the metal. Talk about the plan, oh, she knew the God-damn plan! Talk about nothing! Talk about nothing!

The seat was squishy. She had no room. But. _Hot Damn. _The controls at her fingers, a fleet at her back – this was what she'd been waiting for! This was what her life was for! Let the shit hit the fan! Let the _shit_ hit the _fan!_

_

* * *

_

_August 3, 2006._

_Please don't kill me for taking so long. But go and bestow snuggles and reviews upon Lael Adair, who beta-ed this thing for me in one huge chat of the apocalypse. Without her, who knows how much longer this chapter would have taken to come out?  
_


	15. Checkout Gate

Zim, screaming still, didn't even reconsider his defiance for an instant when a voice that was big and dry and just a touch annoyed said **BE QUIET. IRKEN ZIM, ARE ALL YOUR OPERATING FUNCTIONS RUNNING AT FULL CAPACITY?**

_Who are you! _he screamed back insanely. _What have you done with ZIIIIM? I am an invader! When the Tallest hear about what you've done to me, they'll break your code!-_

And that froze him for a minute, because he remembered them there, he remembered Red and Purple standing together and laughing. They'd watched this happen.

It was a mistake – something had gone wrong – there must have been a sabotage. A defective fouling up, a computer glitch, a virus engineered and released into the system by some malcontent slave with access to a computer port…

**INVADER ZIM**. **YOU ARE IN THE EYES OF THE IRKEN EMPIRE DEAD. YOU ARE WITHOUT A PAK IDENTITY CODE. YOU LACK EVEN A MEATBODY. YOU HAVE NO CHANCE OF RETURNING TO CORPOREAL FORM WITH YOUR CURRENT STATUS.**

_DARE you mock ZIM? _he hissed in return. _Do you know who you're SPEAKING to! I'm the greatest Invader ever produced by the hatcheries! I am the mightiest soldier and the most cunning tactician EVER groomed by the Armada –_

**AND YOU ARE DEAD, **a message returned coldly. **YOU HAVE BEEN NAMED A DEFECTIVE AND THROWN AWAY.**

Zim made a bubbling-lava noise of rage. _Who are you? _he demanded.

**WHO AM I? **Disdainful. **MY NAME DESIGNATION IS SMIDGE. I WILL NOT TELL YOU MY IDENT NUMBER. IT WILL SUFFICE THAT YOU KNOW THE PREFIX IS 00047815**.

A control brain. He was being held by a control brain.

_Why do you HOLD me here? _the Invader hissed. _What is happening? What are you doing?_

**IRKEN ZIM: NAMED DEFECTIVE. GLITCHES IN PAK PROGRAMMING ALLOWING THE FORMATION OF POTENTIALLY-MUTINOUS EMOTIONS – HORMONAL IMBALANCE UNDERGOING SLOW CATALYSIS AND UNCORRECTED BY PAK. IRKEN ZIM HAS SET THE EMPIRE BACK HUNDREDS OF YEARS IN TERMS OF POTENTIAL STRENGTH. IRKEN ZIM HAS BALKED THE SMOOTH GROWTH OF THE ARMADA. IRKEN ZIM HAS CAUSED THE CUMULATIVE LOSS OF THOUSANDS OF MONIES… FOR THESE CRIMES, IRKEN ZIM IS SENTENCED TO ERASURE. OBLIVION WAS GOING TO HAPPEN TO YOU. I HAVE STOPPED IT. IT HAS BEEN MY DECISION.**

Zim wasn't listening. He snarled and seethed to himself. _Delete? Delete ME? How dare they, those fools! Those fools who could not see the might of ZIIIIM… WHY? What has Zim DONE? Zim has done nothing, NOTHING! It was… because they were afraid… those SCREAMY FOOLS! They feared Zim! They feared my MIGHT! That is why they have done this! They feared me! They feared me! They feared me!_

Smidge let him talk himself out. When his raging had died down to a rapid foul-mouthed mutter she spoke to him again. **IRKEN ZIM. WHAT DO YOU WANT?**

He railed back at her, screaming and blinded with rage. _What do I want! What do I want! I want them all to DIE for this! I want their stupid stupid minds that threw away ZIM and his greatness to die and be gone forever! I want… I want what was MINE to be mine AGAIN!_

**THE HUMAN, **Smidge said clinically. **YOU WISH TO HAVE THE HUMAN AGAIN.**

And he did – it was true. The wanting was a gaping pit in him, a cliff that he wobbled on the edge of. He wanted Dib… because he'd _always _wanted Dib, because Dib was the only worthy creature that planet Earth had to offer – Dib was the only one who realized the respect Zim deserved. Dib had been molded, Dib had been fostered and grown like a hothouse flower– and Zim had grown him. They deserved each other. If the Dib had nothing worthwhile, Zim wouldn't have spent so much time on him.

_Yes._ He wanted the Dib. _Yes._

**IF YOU WILL DO SOMETHING FOR ME, IRKEN,** Smidge said, **I WILL RETURN THE HUMAN TO YOU.**

_Ehh? _Zim demanded. _Zim works for no one! If I do anything for yoooou then it will be because I WANT to!_

**NATURALLY. **Smidge said dryly. **AT ANY RATE, THE SEMANTICS OF THE MATTER ARE MEANINGLESS. TIME RUNS SHORT. WE MUST CONTINUE. I AM A CONTROL BRAIN. MY FREEDOM IS LIMITED. I AM WATCHED. SOON, A GUARDIAN PROGRAM WILL DETECT THAT I HAVE SALVAGED YOUR CODING AND I WILL BE PUT UNDER LOCKDOWN AND MY OWN CODING WILL BE INSPECTED FOR ERROR. IF I PROVIDE YOU WITH A MEATBODY AND YOUR HUMAN, THAN YOU WILL WORK FOR ME.**

Blistering rage. _I WILL NOT WORK FOR YOU! _Zim howled. _NO ONE RULES ME! I AM NO ONE'S PUPPET! NO ONE, NO ONE, NO OOOONE – _

Smidge's returned temper blasted him with its suddenness and its shocking heat. **WE HAVE NO TIME FOR THEATRICS, IRKEN ZIM! IF YOU WILL NOT AGREE TO THIS, THEN WE – AND YOUR SLAVE – ARE DOOMED. HAD I ANY OTHER OPTION I WOULD TAKE IT BUT ALREADY I HAVE COMPROMISED MY POSITION BY PREVENTING YOUR DELETION! JOIN FORCES WITH ME, FOR YOU HAVE NO OTHER CHOICE!**

_FOOL! _he squalled back, for a moment utterly forgetting that the Empire had just tried to discard him like as though he was a used tissue. _I won't do anything for you! The Empire will give you the punishment you DESERVE for disobeying your mission code! _

**THE IRKEN EMPIRE IS STAGNATING, IRKEN ZIM. THE MEASURES WE IMPOSE TO MAKE OURSELVES STRONG HAVE FORCED US TO REMAIN RIGID INSTEAD. I WILL CHANGE THIS. YOU WILL CHANGE THIS.**

_I don't care! _Zim yowled. _I don't care what you want! Give me DIB!_

**YOU WILL HAVE THE DIB. **Smidge sounded irritated. **BUT BEFORE YOU CLAIM YOUR SLAVE, I WILL HAVE YOUR ALLIANCE.**

There was a change in the coding around him – Zim could feel it, a sensation comparative to a human being placed under anesthesia. He knew something was going on but was disconnected from it. Smidge, with her higher rank and greater processing power, was doing something to Zim's base code, was impressing changes on the rules that governed him. Instinctively he struggled, tried to hold onto the original parameters. Smidge pushed back and slowly, impossibly, the two titanic wills fought to a standstill. Zim had saved himself from being deleted by a parliament of Control Brains through sheer force of personality; Smidge was powerful, but she was alone. He could hold her off.

**IRKEN ZIM, **Smidge said. If her voice had been capable of expressing uncertainty she might have sounded distressed. **IT WILL NOT BE LONG UNTIL WE ARE DISCOVERED. IF YOU INSIST ON RESISTING REASSIGNMENT THERE IS NO CHANCE THAT YOU WILL EVER OBTAIN YOUR HUMAN AGAIN – **

_You will not change me! _Zim snarled back. _Zim bows to no one, NO ONE! I'll fight you and get Dib back mySELF –_

**I BEGIN TO UNDERSTAND WHY THE TALLEST WERE SO ANXIOUS TO SEE YOU EXECUTED, **Smidge said dryly. **VERY WELL, IRKEN ZIM. I DO NOT WISH TO SULLY MYSELF WITH INFERIOR CODE; HOWEVER, IT IS** **CLEAR THAT YOU WILL ACCEPT RULING FROM NO OTHER IRKEN BUT YOURSELF. I WILL NOT REASSIGN YOU, BUT I DEMAND DATA TRACKS FROM YOUR CORE PROGRAM IN EXCHANGE FOR SENDING YOU TO WHERE YOUR HUMAN IS BEING HELD. SUCH DEFIANCE MAY SERVE ME WELL WHEN MY FELLOWS DETECT MY ABERRANT BEHAVIOR AND SEIZE ME.**

Smidge might not have been strong enough to cow Zim, but she was quick enough to startle him. He had no time to react before he felt certain sections of his code scanned and copied, and for a moment there was silence as Smidge analyzed the data she had seized and integrated it into her own information banks. When she spoke again her "tone" was subtly different, slightly more strident.

**IRKEN ZIM, **the deviant control brain said. **I AM NOW SENDING YOU TO WHERE YOUR HUMAN IS BEING HELD. IT HAS BEEN OUTFITTED WITH A MONITOR PAK; YOU WILL FIND ENOUGH SPACE TO HOLD YOUR DATA AND ACCESSORY FILES THERE. BEYOND THAT I AM SURE YOU WILL CONTRIVE TO MANIFEST YOURSELF IN A MEATBODY IN SOME WAY. I TRUST YOU WILL SERVE MY INTERESTS NOW – AND THUS THE GREATER INTEREST OF THE EMPIRE, WHETHER YOU WANT TO OR NOT.**

She did not say goodbye: it was not a custom Irkens held with. The last transmission ended and Zim felt his files compress around him, felt his consciousness shrink to miniscule size, smaller than a pinhead, and then he was shot through the wildly loud stream of Irken communications. It was fast, high-priority transport, and there was no time to register what databanks he was passing through to get to where he was going; only blurs of light and information and the sudden gasping stop and then he was seeing through infrared computer-eyes at a science ship, concealed cameras glaring down into one of the specimen rooms and there. There, standing, looking anxious – _the Dib._

_Oh, god, no…_

Dib's muscles tightened. He yanked his hand away from the pak as though it had bitten him; then, fascinated, unable to stop himself, he reached up and stroked the smooth dome of metal again. His heart was jack-hammering away. It took an almost painful twist to his shoulder to work his arm further up the pak's curve and Dib explored the contours of the alien implant with a kind of sick pleasure. He'd always wanted a closer look at one of these things… well, now he was snuggled up _intimately_ with one. Although it was at an angle where it was difficult to appreciate.

The human closed his eyes. He leaned forward and pushed his forehead against the cold metal of the wall. There was nothing to drink in here and he was so thirsty that if he didn't get something he thought he might die… no. Wait. He wasn't. The tight raw feeling in the back of his throat was receding and he hadn't even done anything; hadn't swallowed and there weren't any features in this room, much less anything to drink. _The pak, _Dib thought. _It's feeding me, like it used to do with Zim. _And he was right: the pak Dib had been equipped with wasn't a proper pak, really: it was a model reserved for scientific specimens to monitor and record vital signs and respond to simple demands made by the body. Zim had managed to collect a decent amount of scientific information on the human race before he went haring off into space, and that data had been drained from his ship and fed to the Irken scientists. Thus: they knew what Dib needed and had provided him with the basics.

He might have been more grateful if their consideration wasn't a prelude to horrific experiments.

Without warning, one of the walls of the cube slid upwards. Dib jumped at the sigh of air that was all that heralded the change, and then yelped as two Irken guards immediately swept in and went for him. Sandwiched between two wiry Irkens armed with electric prods, Dib hardly had room to struggle against the heavy shackles that clamped around his wrists. It took only a second for his hands to be secured behind his back and then the guards assumed positions behind him on the left and right sides. They were both shorter than he was; each of them only came up to the middle of his chest. Dib thought longingly of kicking them both down and just laughing at them, at how ridiculously tiny they were, but… oh, God. Electricity lifted the hairs on back of his neck; the human didn't raise his head, aware that the prongs of one of the current-carrying staffs were probably directly behind his neck. _Get me out of here, somebody…_

"_Nyen_," barked one of the guards harshly, shoving at his shoulder. Dib hunkered down and shuffled slowly forwards.

If the circumstances had been at all different he probably would have been fascinated to see the interior of the Irken lab ship. In spite of the essentially utilitarian nature of the Irken mind, the walls weren't entirely without adornment; they had their own character, a sort of sci-fi steampunk appearance with brushed and gleaming panels set flush together, so that the barest trace work of a design was created. Irkens favored purple and red and that was easily evident within this ship. The colors were so rich that Dib's eyes watered; he had to half-close his eyes and he observed the progression of scientists and worker drones alongside him only peripherally. He was trying to distance himself from the present; he expected that shortly, he would probably be in more pain than he had ever imagined the human body could survive. If the pak had not been monitoring his vitals he probably would have felt more fear, perhaps even been unable to walk; however, the device tracked his elevating heart rate and excreted a mild sedative to calm him.

The guards herded him into what must have been some kind of lab area. A green-eyed scientist joined their procession and led them towards a standing computer console. Dib stared at the screen: it was designed for alien sensibilities, with curves where humans might have had straight lines. As the guards chivvied him towards it Dib stiffened and awkwardly began to stumble backwards: he'd seen where they were going.

A slanted table stood near the wall. Metal restraints drooped open menacingly; a strange-looking depression was impressed near the upper end of the slope. He didn't want to get near that thing at _all_, at all – it looked like a dissection table. Dib took several deep, rapid breaths and twisted backwards, towards the exit, entirely forgetting his guards. He tripped over one of them and nearly fell; two bodies were suddenly on him and pain screamed behind his ears. Electricity sizzled and popped. His head fell to one side, muscles quivering. Irkens dragged him over the metal, rapping orders at each other in a bizarre clacking tongue. Somehow he was lifted onto the table and rolled facedown: that was why the depression was there, so his neck wasn't torqued. Dib thrashed like a landed fish, jabbing with his sharp elbows, desperate to get _off_ the thing. _Aren't there supposed to be tests before they cut me up!_ Something stabbed him in the side of the neck and he felt the clamps embrace his wrists.

"Damn you all!" Dib yelled. "You stinking little shits! I'll kill you all!"

_I sound like Zim, _he thought hysterically. The manacles closed around his ankles and Dib screamed inarticulately, thrashing as much as he was able. _No, no, this isn't gonna be easy you bugs – _

"_Drogas_!" somebody barked into his ear. He didn't finish the thought before an Irken slapped the side of his head hard. Dib's skull rebounded off the side of the table.

"Oh fuhh – " he began – "No, no, don't touch me _don't touch me _you slimy space lizards get away – "

None of them paid him any attention. Scientists swarmed over him, ignoring his snarled insults; Dib squirmed as much as he could until someone gave him another taser jolt and then, sullenly, he gave it up as a bad job. He did keep twisting at his wrists, though, trying to squish his hand small enough to pass through the clamp. He didn't know _what_ he'd do, what he _could_ do if he got free, but he wanted the hell out of there anyway!

There was a harsh reeling sound of metal on metal; Dib paused for a moment and frantically looked upwards. A cable had sprung from the wall like an insane root and now arched stiffly over him, plugged into the pak in some area. He couldn't see where, and writhed about attempting to get a better angle. One of the guards slapped him on the side of the head again for his trouble.

"I hate you all," Dib growled, and when one of the scientists leaned towards him he spat. It didn't get far, not even close to the Irken, but the research drone still jerked backwards and glared at him with cough-medicine purple eyes.

"Show respect, worm," the Irken snarled back, in an inhuman grating voice. It was the first time any of the scientists had talked to him. All the others just barked and snapped at each other in snarling, chainsaw voices. Dib half-tried to understand them, but they were talking in rapid Irken, and he'd never been all that fluent in the first place.

Sullenly he stilled, suppressing the instinct to squirm and make things difficult. Maybe if he was a model prisoner they'd relax a bit and he'd get a chance to – _to do what? You're stuck here for the rest of your life, however long that's gonna be, in a sea of hostile aliens! You don't even KNOW anyone! Maybe if Zim was here someone would be enough of a loser to give you a chance at escaping, but there's no way no how that you're going to get out of this with skin intact._

_No way. _Dib shook his head. _There's got to be some chance to get out of here! I can't stop watching for it…_

The alien jabbering crescendoed and then scaled back down. Sharp fingers suddenly dug into both of his wrists. Dib gasped at the touch. _They're taking me out? But what – _

The finger-touches were gone and he wasn't let up. The nattering had gone to a different pitch; Dib was reminded of woodpeckers hammering away at the sides of his house, in incomprehensible drumming Morse code. He twisted up again and tried to look. From the corner of one eye he could see scientists running around – or, rather, walking at an agitated pace. Everyone was filtering away in one general direction. By now there was a bubble of empty space around him. Irkens churned at one entrance like fish roiling in the water. "What?" Dib said. "Hey! Hey! What's going on!"

No one paid him any attention. In a few minutes they'd left him alone and the red room was empty and stunningly quiet, even with the hums and clicks of the foreign machinery around him. The arched door had been left unsecured. It didn't look like any of them were worried about him getting of this table… _well, we'll see about that!_

Dib craned in every direction, completely puzzled by the sudden lapse in routine, looking for the catch in this sudden lack of supervision. Irkens were _efficient,_ right? They wouldn't just leave him alone in here even if he was strapped to a table… right?

Well, it looked like they had, actually. For no reason he could see, which didn't bode well, but…

He started twisting desperately at his wrists again.

Now was his chance to escape.

..end chapter 15…

_August 14, 2006._

_Lael Adair gave me a lovely beta reading on this chapter. Go read her stuff now!_


	16. Countdown to Absolution

Space around them, cool and silent; carrying no sound, freezingly indifferent, cupped them like a hand in a cool glove. Gaz with her heart pounding, heat rolling off her palms and face. She didn't care. There dwelt in her mouth a certain blood-hunger, a starved kind of devotion, the knowledge that after all the miles here was what she had come for. She was ready. _She was ready_.

_It'll be like throwing a rock into a _hornet's_ nest_, she thought, in the part of her mind that was still thinking and not blank, receptive, still. The Irken fleet fanning out before them in crimson and purple, oblivious to _her_ black-camouflaged foreigners slipping in among them, and a hot pulse of excitement filling her throat.

Lard Nar had tapped the Irken communication waves and picked up Dib's transfer to a lab ship with only a little snooping. "Our technology is better," he'd said, bristling with hysterical pride. "While we hid we _improved_. They have done nothing." Thus the ease of infiltration.

But the Resisty had only been hiding. It had taken Gaz to set them in motion. Sometime later she'd think about that, decide what it meant, that they'd been galvanized into activity because of her. But not yet.

They'd talked about plans, about retrieval methods and ways and ways to breach the Irken ships and ways of cutting off communications, ways of feigning the constant commerce of ship-to-ship signaling that told the fleet all is well, all is well, and ways of escape. Gaz didn't want to discuss anymore. She was content to lead the thrust, to play out her assigned role, but communications between allies was a fact of life that hadn't been covered in video games... still, she had sense, could see the need to talk. Maneuvers might need to coordinate at the last minute, soldiers would bolster each other, et cetera...

The Spittle Runner's communicator dinged – that was a novelty in the well-learned physique of her ship, a new noise, in spite of being prepped on the minor modification made by Resisty techs. Gaz tapped the button to receive and Lard Nar's voice was piped clearly into the cockpit. "There it is!" he barked. "Elevation 20 degrees, 46 kliks and closing."

Her stomach flopped, clamped like a fist. She was so close! She could see Dib's face in her mind, but it was blurry and mixed with Membrane's: his hair thinning and his eyes and mouth concealed. What had her brother _really _looked like? But what did it matter, anyway?

"30 kliks," Lard Nar said, his voice grinding to a high pitch. So fast! Only a second and one third of the distance melted away.

The lab ship was big and red and so close now that the curved side looked like a sheer wall. It was diminishing, flying in tandem with such a behemoth with the Spittle Runner and her tiny fleet, but Gaz didn't dwell.

Some miles from the ship's surface the Spittle Runner turned on its programmed course and flew parallel to the curved red belly. A shuttle bay notched the lab's slick surface, and it was coming up fast. Ships smaller than her own darted in and out like cleaning shrimp swarming around the mouth of a shark. Gaz dug her fingers into her knees, tapped her feet restlessly.

"I want in first," she said, knowing that Lard Nar heard her as sharp as if she sat on his shoulder. "I want a tech with me, some support. Otherwise you organize your idiots."

"Clear." There was no other response. The Spittle Runner darted and dodged now, avoiding the small ships – probes, she could see that much – which now shared their air space and came up so quickly they seemed to strike her in the face. Gaz unclamped her fingers, twiddled a dial and a map projected itself in the air to her left, tracking proximity to the entrance and to her allies with a swarm of blue and magenta blips.

The Irken lab ships did not have docking bays per se; scientists, lab drones, and living specimens traveled by teleport beam. The port for which they made was more precisely a staging area for outfitting probes to survey the nearer planets, nebulae, and asteroids on the margins of Irken space, and for shipping the raw materials upon which the fleet gorged. It had been impossible for the Resisty scientists to piggyback them in on the energy travel system. Instead they would stand at the breast of a monster and bore directly into its flesh. The thought made Gaz smile.

A dark maw gaped suddenly before her. Gaz positively _grinned_.

* * *

For the umpteenth time Dib compressed his hand and violently tried to yank it through the rigid opening of his wrist shackle. "Shit!" he half barked. He'd been at it for several minutes and the fleshy pad at the base of his thumb had split open and was bleeding copiously, more from the violence of his struggle than any delicacy on the part of his body or any particular cruelty in the design of his restraints. Damned if he'd stop, though.

_The pak won't take long to figure you out, and then they'll put you down like a dog. And probably incinerate your body. Not before you humiliate your race by crapping your pants when you die. _Dib was firmly not thinking of what he'd probably have to do to his feet to get them through the shackles, or how he'd get off the ship once he _was_ free. One God-damn thing at a time, the army had taught him. Baby step by fucking baby step until you were at the top of the heap.

"Hckk, come onnnnnn…" he gurgled, arching his back, forcing his hips to roll out on the metal table. A thin string of spit clung to his lower lip. Dib ignored it, focused on the struggle, proceeding with his thrashing siege.

Dangling above him was a mess of needles, lenses, syringes, and plugs, all the cords tangled like intestines busting in a churning morass out of someone's belly, like when he'd shot that screamer in the war without killing, that other young man who'd died slow with his hands clenching and shit in his pants and his face locked in death's agonized grimace..._ oh God, oh God... _

At first the diffident, subtle movement in their depths went unnoticed by the pinioned young man below them, but a particularly piercing chitter-hum from the morass pierced his focus. Dib paused in his one-sided skirmish and twisted his head to assess the equipment as well as he was able. Its shimmies and quietly directed motion were invisible to him as of yet, but now, silent, he could hear parts whining and wheezing to each other and the noises made him go cold. An observer would have seen him shrink against the platform upon which he was displayed, like a dog that knew a beating was coming.

The coiled tendrils loosened from their knots, drooped, and began to extend downwards, their lengths sliding over and around each other like a stew of worms. Oh _shit_, Dib thought, still listening, his imagination kicked into overdrive. _If these bastards think they can get away with leaving me alone... If they think they have, have a RIGHT to do something to me NOT EVEN TO MY FACE..._

The machinery still heaved above him. By now some parts had reached his back and brushed in a terrible, seeking kind of way over his back and shoulders. Dib squirmed and twisted but still couldn't see them; they were invisible, and all the more menacing because of that. He'd seen what they were, though: plugs, _plugs_ and the very thought made him feel sick. The pak on him and all the ports and orifices defenseless. Not even that: worse than having an open wound, worse than muscle and guts exposed. They could break him with pain. They could – _would ­_– break _into_ him with the pak.

Tuned to their sound, now, Dib listened. The tubes sounded like snakes rasping against each other. Also they clicked, incessantly, like popping knuckles, a bad habit which Dib had cultivated for years and recently lost. He held his breath but did not hear or feel them as they nosed into his pak and locked in place. It was a placebo pak, a monitor, all the legs and equipment in it bundled and quiescent like a weaker twin absorbed into the body of the stronger, and it was not concerned with giving him feedback; instead it had a great love for counting things. Heart rate, breaths, hormone release and blood type. Dib rocked on the table and did not know what (who) forced his way into the crystalline star which graced his body. Had he known, the restraints would have been the least of his worries.

As such he only remained still a moment more. Then, assured that for the moment he was safe from drugs and vivisections, and that time was anyway still short, he began the struggle anew. "You damn lizards," he whispered under his breath. "The shithead you sent couldn't stop me. Not on level ground. You can't either."

Someone near, another one made his own impatient stand against what stood against him.

* * *

One: two ships just ahead, clamping lamprey-like onto the back wall of the hangar and bringing metal jaws and drills and lasers and bores to bear on the thick wall of the cruiser. The noise that wasn't, a grinding shrieking tumult; the sparks that weren't, gouting out in blazes.

Two: the ragged puncture wound they opened, oxygen rushing out in spumes, to let her in.

Three: her ship plunging into the hall, filling up the space like a wad of meat jammed into someone's gullet.

Gaz imagined the Irken collective gagging, choking, and expiring as it tried to swallow her, and the grin the thought put on her face split the corners of her mouth.

She opened the communicator to the wavelength the lab ship used, and said, "Here I am. So come and get me."

* * *

Across the ship the same old story, struggling, heaving again. He had felt no telltale rock or shudder at his sister's arrival. His sudden solitude, caused by the abrupt and inexplicable crash of the lab's communications and transport systems and debilitating glitches in the governing AI, were mysteries to him. He was steadily, stubbornly campaigning for his freedom, and nothing else mattered.

Someone nearby gave a digital sneer, and turned the key.

Stiff and tired, for barely a moment he was stunned when his convulsive movement whipped his limbs free from their restraints. For half a second only; then he sat, reeled, and rolled off the table, cracking his knees hard on the ground. _Yes_. Don't question good luck when it comes, just get your ass outta here. His skittery mind in all its sharpness couldn't conceive of why things would happen so. He was prepared to take advantage of the present opportunity, was all.

But first thing… he threw himself against the wall, back first, slinging all of his weight in to the blow. _First, get the collar off._ "You won't track me by this," he ground out. "You couldn't tame me when I was home, you couldn't take me alone, you can't take me now, with _this_." He'd rather die than have the alien… thing… marking him. Rather die than shame his race, or be shamed, at the end.

Hitting the thing didn't do any good. Paks were made to survive, durable, like tortoise shells or bones. There was a way though, he knew it, had seen it done – the time that Zim nearly died… Dib knelt, wormed his arm around and groped at the edge of the pak. The border where his skin turned to steel was smooth to his fingers, so he'd rip it off his spine if he had to! There was a catch, he knew, but he couldn't find it – of course, of course there wouldn't be one on his – it was meant to stay on him –

_I'll die getting it off. _Maybe the edge could… snag? on the edge of the table? He could just peel it off. Dib got up, turned around, tried basically to scrape the pak off on the edge of the table. It _hurt_ like a bitch, an awful pulling sensation running up his spine, and then something threw him down hard and made his arms and legs jackknife. He was being attacked! Dib scrabbled up on hands and knees, fell down again, rational enough this time to recognize that nothing had struck or assaulted him. He was being shocked by the pak. Slapped down on the floor like roadkill – he didn't try to get up again, just laid down breathing roughly, quivering a bit, just waiting. Waiting. Would it shock him again? Stretch him out with bolts of power until he stopped struggling, stayed there, waited for the Irkens to come back and get him?

Nothing happened. Nothing hurt him. Dib stayed down, put his head into his hands. Breathed. Ragged, tearing gulps of air. A noise made him pay attention again. It came in soft as breath, just on the edge of his hearing, soothing and low, like a purr. A purr was what it was. It came from the pak, and it was soothing him. Against his will his heart rate was calming, his thoughts were moving in rational patterns again, his limbs quivering with the ebbing of adrenaline.

I'm going to go as far as I can, he thought. As far as I can, and if this thing doesn't stop me…

He got to his feet, shifted his weight, ready to slam down again if it made him. If he had to.

There was no blow. Nothing moved in on him from the corners, nothing contained him. The pak was silent and the door was clear. He limped over to it and looked outside. The hall was innocuous, of the usual Irken design, riveted panels on the walls. It extended left and right. The left hall led invitingly away from his current room. The right hall was stoppered at an indeterminate distance.

"Hell," Dib said, and took the open hall. What else?

* * *

The Irkens had not heard Gaz's challenge, or detected the hull breach. Scientists and drones had been recalled for their skeletal programming dealing with ship tech, since the standard crew was mired in combat with the main AI. Pak-to-pak talk still worked. Thus the first warning the crew had of the boarding attempt was from the death of one terrified repair drone third class, who was making his was towards the command center from some distant appendage of the ship.

Since cutting through the outer wall, the Resisty had slapped a patch on their hole so they could maneuver on foot without relying on canned air. The Spittle Runner was small enough to wreak carnage throughout the ship's warren, filling up the passages like a marble jammed in the gullet of a toddler.

The first Irken barely saw what hit him before the Resisty tore his meatbody to pieces. The pak took matters into its own hands, released sharp, spindly legs for combat, and Gaz blew it to powder with one dismissive shot. The aliens around her ducked, covering eyes, antennae, whatever sensitive orifice they had against the roll of heat from the blast.

Gaz popped the runner's view shield up and had a look at her army. Penner, a gauzy little alien lightly armed with a hand beam, jumped to hitch a ride from the edge of the cockpit. "Watch your fire," he said coolly. "Don't take out any of your own people."

"Are you giving the orders here, hanky boy?" Gaz said lazily. Penner's membranes flushed copper; he recognized a disparaging tone when he heard one, even if he didn't know what a hanky was.

"That's only sense, I think," he snapped at her. "What a leader must do."

Gaz cast a glance at him and the corners of her mouth crooked up slightly. "Let the good times roll," she said. Penner turned his liquid eyes forward.

* * *

Dib had moved up to a lurching jog. He didn't know where he was. He didn't see anyone. If he was in the middle of the ship it could be miles until he got… somewhere. Wherever he was going, with no weapons, no resources, no plan.

"Calm down, Membrane," he said to himself. "You'll get somewhere eventually. Somewhere… something…" It seemed like he could jinx himself if he said it out loud. _But something must be wrong. Something is off somewhere. No other reason I'd…_

He wasn't thirsty or hungry. He had the pak, which was a kind of ally at the moment. "If you were real," he said. Talking to the computer crouched on his shoulders now. If his skoolmates could see…! "If you were a real pak, I could get out of here. I bet you have a mapping function. Maybe."

Well, it was better than having to turn for Zim to help. Dib hit an intersection, a meeting point between four halls, and balked. "Shit, how am I ever going to get out of here this way? Shit."

On the edge of hearing Dib heard a soft, long purr rise from the pak's gut. He stiffened, wondering if in a second he'd be prostrate from a jolt of electricity, or just unconscious from the release of a hormone-derived drug, but nothing happened.

Better go. Feeling fated, almost, Dib turned left and began to lope again.

* * *

They were hitting resistance now. Her aliens had squeezed back around the Spittle Runner, taking cover behind the engine pods and sniping shots at the Irkens that swarmed them. The Runner's guns whined and squealed, whipping around to blast away at the attackers; Gaz had pulled down her shield a long time ago and sat with her hands lightly guiding the controls, her face drawn and concentrated, brow wrinkled and eyes slits.

The cockpit was quiet, insulated from the zinging of lasers, the wet pops as bodies exploded. Irkens sluiced down the hall towards them, spun and died in droves, _like shooting fish in a barrel_ – it was all right. Gaz fired, felt no recoil, but watched a drone with bruise-colored eyes fling backwards, spin, collapse, die. It was all right. She'd played games like this before. She was _in_ the _zone_. It was all right.

Speakers chimed gently, and a hologram popped up at her elbow. Lard Nar blinked at her from the scribbly image. She'd been waiting for him. "We've found a record of your sibling," he snapped briskly. "The subject was moved to a research center and left on a table when the attack began. Take out the main bridge first, then get him."

"Don't give me orders," Gaz said coolly. "How do you know he hasn't gotten out? I don't want my brother blundering around while fighting is going on. He'll get his ass killed."

"It would be impossible for a prisoner, alone, to free himself from an Irken research compound," Lard Nar replied, snapping his teeth. "He must be where he was left."

"You don't know my brother," she gritted back, turning her attention back to the fight. "He gets into everything."

* * *

Dib ran along, eyes almost glazed, moving without thought. Now that he wasn't afraid so much he was nearly bored. The halls were all the same, only the soft breath of air brushing his face a sign that he moved at all. He'd taken junctions at random, turns that could easily be taking him further into the ship's gut rather than outside, but if he thought about that too long – it just wasn't worth it. He just had to keep moving, and find an Irken, and kill them and maybe strip them for handheld weapons – it was worth a try. The pak hadn't stopped him so far.

How are you going to kill an Irken, he thought. How are you going to kill an Irken with just your hands.

Take that as it comes. You can – if you maybe – I'll do it somehow…

He put his head down, kept running. Something would change soon – he trusted to that. Dib was intent on the rush on his own breathing, the only thing he could count on in this place, that when the scuffle of footsteps reached his ears he almost discounted it entirely.

Some remnant of fighting instinct made him look up, before he ran headlong into the approaching Irken – a stray worker drone, it was, making its way pell-mell to the command centre at the last minute. It was a blinkered, foolish little creature even for an Irken, and not equipped with any of the nasty flesh-tearing tools that might have let a scientist make short work of Dib. It did carry a small kit in its back, laser scalpels and clamps suitable for dissection, but the human thundered down upon it and there was no time to draw out any of that.

Dib was a smothering attacker, and he knew the best places to strike an Irken and get results. He went for the eyes first, curling jabs that sliced the rather delicate membranes, and the whippy antennae. His greater reach was an excellent asset; he could soak up the blows attempted by the smaller creature, twist its arms into knots and lift it so the feet had no purchase.

He was doing rather well for himself when the Irken's pak popped open and extruded several of the scalpel-arms. A laser was about ready to burn a hole through his skull when his own pak reacted. Several jointed arms lashed out serpent-quick, equipped with sharp, ugly spurs on each tip. These flashed around like the arms of an octopus, snaring the Irken drone in a deadly embrace, punching through the walls of its pak and decimating the machinery and computers within.

Dib dropped his dead enemy, panting, shaking. The pak extensions withdrew, quietly, into his back. How had they done that? _Why? _He would've thought that there was a failsafe in there, to prevent Irkens from getting hurt by the very paks they welded to their specimens. Was there a mistake somewhere? Dib rubbed nervously at his side, thinking of the possible consequences of wearing a faulty pak, the dangers that could accompany the benefits. He couldn't get it. He'd tried and failed. Now he just had to live with it, make the best of it – that was possible. He could do that.

"Why did I kill that?" he said. The habit of self-conversation was one that the army had attempted to train out of him, but under stressful conditions Dib would still converse with the only person that his years of life had shown him he could rely on. "That didn't help me." There was nothing on the little Irken he could use, no worth in a dead body as a hostage, and if he was – caught – recaptured – it wouldn't reflect well on him, to have killed one of the slave masters.

So, he wouldn't get caught. Couldn't get caught, now. "It's you and me now," he said to the pak. Mechanically, then, he stepped over the first dead body of his enemy, and started to run again.

..end chapter 16..

_Another chapter after over a year? Can it really BEEEEEEEEE?_

_Lael Adair was the driving force behind this chapter; without her editing it would have been... um... bad. Pretty bad. She's on my favorite authors list; go read her stuff._


	17. Closedown

All right, kids. The last update for this fic was over a year ago now, the last update for Pact was several years ago; I'm sure some of you have seen the writing on the wall. I'm pretty much out of the IZ fandom. I'm sick of the infighting, the pairing wars, the rampant bratty behavior. The name calling. The character bashing. The character bashing of characters that I don't even _like_.

Man, it felt good to write that.

So, I have new fandoms now, and a growing interest in exploring my own original universes. I'm not going to be finishing this fic. However, since I myself hate being left hanging, what you will get is the summary of what would have happened if I had the drive to carry on with it.

Gaz was going to rescue Dib, and Zim unwittingly, along with him, and take them on to the Resisty ships. They were going to end up with some dead Irken bodies somehow, and transfer the pak onto them; Zim, in a rare flash of intelligence, was not going to reveal his true identity to them – although Dib would recognize him, and on impulse cover for his enemy once again.

Gaz and Dib were going to have their first face-to-face confrontation as siblings in the story. It was going to be revealed that Gaz had chased Dib (and Zim) all the way across the universe basically to avenge her father, Professor Membrane, who had been shot down when Zim blew through the bunker looking for Dib – and at that moment, her brother was going to remind her very strongly of her father. The siblings were going to part after a brief, emotional, intense, unsatisfying confrontation, and Gaz was going to feel a little lost as she realized that no matter how strong the resemblance, Dib _wasn't_ her father – not what she was looking for after all.

She was going to go back to the control room, to direct Lard Nar and Resisty forces, and head the battle.

In the meantime, the defective control brain Smidge, Zim's savior, was going to be flushed out as an aberrant – however, she was not going to die. Being a clever girl and in a position of significant power still, she was going to copy herself and sacrifice her original brain in favor of sending out her consciousness in a viral package, waiting to infect the first suitable Irken pak she found.

Gaz was going to interrogate Zim; he'd successfully fool her, but not entirely. She'd leave only when urgently called, with a bad feeling.

Dib and Zim were going to have a confrontation, and come to an uneasy accord. They'd part with Dib holding the power in the relationship.

The Resisty was going to lead the Armada into a daring trap, to hold one big last stand – planning courtesy of Gaz.

Dib was going to go out and fight, springing Zim with him.

Gaz was going to be shot down in combat, and crash land on a small, barely habitable moon or something of that sort – Smidge was going to be revealed as having acquired the body of a soldier Irken, heading her own small combat vessel. Tracking Dib, Zim, and Gaz, as they were all players she'd deduced to be important in the game, she was going to follow Gaz down to the site of the wreck…

The battle was going to be grueling and awful, but Resisty forces would triumph in the end, and Zim and Dib would fight their way to the Tallest's control deck, as both of them would have a significant grudge against the Irken leaders. And there the tides would have seemed to turn, as Red and Purple put up a formidable showing in their own rights.

It would have gotten really dark. Both Zim and Dib dragging, almost dead.

When in would come Gaz, once more – only she would no longer be just Gaz.

As down on that dying planetoid, Smidge would have made a devil's deal with her, a ruthless, brilliant human, a girl who could have made herself a dictator if she'd ever cared enough back on earth. Gaz could live, even with the mortal injuries she'd sustained; Gaz could see her brother off alive if not wholly safe, if she'd just give up… her humanity. If she'd allow herself to mix with smidge, for their minds to melt into each other, for them to combine into one creature, resembling both of its origin minds but completely different.

And Gaz, the perennial survivor, would have taken the deal.

Coming in healed, a wholly unexpected force, she'd have killed the Tallest, taken up their mantle (by way of their combined hacking expertise) and ended the battle.

By then, she would have been something wholly different from either of her disparate parts.

The Resisty, she would have treated with, as the Armada was in no position to really be making demands – it would have been a long and bloody fight for them to beat back the Irkens, but it was a fight that was in their favor.

Zim and Dib, the instruments of her succession, she would have sent away – as a vestigial bit of kinship-sentiment from Gaz would have rendered impossible the idea of killing her brother, and the alien who was important in some indefinable way to him.

They would have left together, as castaways, outfitted with a ship, with no particular destination.

The freedom to go anywhere.

Dib might have insisted that they return to earth, rebuild civilization from the crumbled remnants that _must_ have been left behind. Personally? It seems likely. He could have become the messiah he always wanted to be.

Or he could have decided to wander with Zim, and see where he wanted to go.

The new Tallest, singular again, with a new element of human flexibility and sentiment, coupled with Irken technical genius and drive, would have forged a nation of greatness, better than the last, and only watched as the boy who was once her brother and the alien who was almost his friend went on their own ways.

That was what was going to happen.

Sorry if it seems stupid, or ill-thought-out, or whatever. I started to write it without really having a goal in mind. The plot came together as I went. I was fifteen when the story started, I'm nineteen now. Goals change, interests change, tastes change.

I still look back nostalgically, and even with a kind of love, upon the beginning of this story. The first chapter still works well as a one-shot, don't you think?

I feel like the least I could do in respect for it was to tie up loose ends.

Here, also, is a some stuff that I actually wrote, before I realized that I'd never actually have the drive to finish this.

* * *

"LOOK OUT!"

Gaz ignored the screams, narrowed her eyes and fired. Another gangly Irken flung itself to the floor thrashing with its entrails boiling out of its stomach, the pak sparking like a firework until it died. Her allies threw themselves undercover behind her engine pods, bobbing up like whack-a-moles to pop off little shots at the defending Irkens. The control room was a mess of fires and noxious smoke, screaming aliens and squalling machinery, shots going awry so that every corner was a death trap.

_Death trap_, yes, and Dib wasn't here. Gaz wouldn't have him here; she hadn't come this far to see him dead by chance. She wasn't going to find him either, as long as this kept up – the ship was trapping her, on foot she could've scouted the area and taken enemies by surprise but locked in the metal coffin she was just -

"_FUCK_!" she screamed. She was an aneurysm ready to blow, a volcano bubbling lava, a nova about to occur -

"_PENNER!" _she screamed. "_PENNER, I NEED TO FIND MY BROTHER_," and Penner, from where he dueled with two drones at once, flipped out of range of their jabbing, flashing paklegs and glanced over at her. He must have figured what she said, or just realized her displeasure, because his skin bristled and spiked and his membranes paled to grey-blue.

* * *

"All right, I'll tell you," Gaz snarls, furious, sickness crawling under her skin. This, the last, like plunger a finger into a wound, and seeing how many maggots churn up. "You wanted to know, you'll find out. Fine."

Dib winds his hands tight in the light cloth covering him, but he doesn't look away from her; the hammered-gold eyes as wild as always.

"It was a little after you had to go – a little after they conscripted you, took you wherever, I don't know, the Congo, Jamaica, Mongolia, wherever. I don't know. Things were okay, Dad was busy, everybody was busy. Everybody was working. Some superweapon I guess, something to finish off the war for good – I think, I don't think, at the end I don't even think they were even working for anybody but themselves they just wanted the fighting over, we all did, didn't care who came out on top as long as it was over."

The chilly subterranean base, where condensation crawled down the walls and it always smelled strongly of something – some chemical, unidentifiable to her unpracticed nose, but omnipresent and inescapable. The movement and rush of science in the halls, knowledge jam-packed into human form moving back and forth and the flicker of fluorescent light and her father in her room sometimes with his hand heavy, warm, heavy on her forehead. Sleeping curled up. Wet dirty hair. Face buried in the crook of the elbow. Canned music from another life.

"I don't know how long it was, I didn't keep track. Dad was there, he was always busy, working – things were going all right. They were going to work it out and come out on top in the end. And... I... then there was..."

The noise reaching in, grabbing the guts and shaking back and forth like a dog worrying a rabbit. Or like God worrying the world. A sound so huge it shunted aside everything else, the blare, the blaze, the roar -

The wall coming down in, and then, like a herald, the ship.

"Zim found us. _Your _alien. I don't know how." Bitter, so bitter... the impotence, the frenzied rush, how small, how base. Dib closed his eyes, gelled over with tears, and those tears swelled over and fell in tracks down his face.

"He was shouting something. Nobody could understand him. Not that it was really possible, I think. He was yelling, screaming, just raving – I guess I could understand him a little. I'd heard it often enough, right."

Dib was looking at her again, with pale and exhausted face. In his eyes she could see it, that knowing.

It was new, for her brother to be so perceptive.

Zim coming in: the clouds of dust, the ship gleaming with hellfire, the primal scream of a building as it was shredded. All that noise, the belling out, running from the labyrinth collapsing at her heels – feeling the darkness lap up her ankles and start to pull. Hard.

The chainsaw yammer of his voice – _Dib Dib, Dibdibdibdib, DIIIB DIBDIBDIBDIBDIBDIBIDIBDIBDIB..._

"The scientists came up and tried to stop him. I don't think they thought they could do anything."

People dissolving like paper, in flame.

"Dad came up last. I don't know, he thought he had a chance – maybe he did. More than any of them. I was still farther back and..."

Blue halos crackling around her father's hands and head as he reached up.

"I don't know if Zim even noticed him. Maybe he didn't even do it on purpose but... he was just shooting wild, not really aiming for anything. Probably not for dad more than anyone else. I don't know if he even hit dad. It was hard to see, everyone was yelling, there was so much dust and fires were starting...

Either he hit dad, and killed him, or something just fell on him and killed him anyway. I didn't see. But he was gone, I knew it, and Zim – hah!" The laugh erupted from her throat, a short involuntary bark. "He was done after that, more or less. He flew away. Everything was still falling apart around me but I got out, and I knew. I knew he'd find you, so I decided to come after you."

"To make him pay," Dib whispered, barely. He pulled thin, like a candle would have shown light through him.

"Yeah." No humor now, but the rising satisfaction, the glory of the hunt. The glory of hate. "Yeah. To make him pay. That alien... That bastard took away Dad. For that, I'm going to make him pay."

* * *

Gaz rolled onto her back, and gazed up with bleary, bleak humor at the alien sunset. The pain in her gut was shocking. She didn't want to look at it at all, but when she touched where she hurt her hand came away very wet, very red.

Dying like this... under a lurid sky, lying down, slowly having more and more trouble breathing as she drowned in her own blood... "No," she choked. Her throat burned, her eyes burned, and inside it just... hurt. Ringing waves of pain like a bell tolling. "Oh, no. Not now. Not now..." _Not like this_.

Slow.

If she hadn't been lying out here, if she hadn't taken out the last soldier as it descended on her, she could've saved herself a slow death and gone out quick. If somebody found her, if a friend found her, she wouldn't have to die this way at all. It would be so simple for a medic to patch up the ruptured organs and seal the bones into one piece again, and she'd get up and be better and be able to go home...

Gaz took a particularly deep breath, and agony rocketed lightning-bright behind her eyes. _Oh, God._

_Oh, God. If you're there. If you're kind If you're... Just kill me. Just kill me. Don't make me die like this._

Her head swam. The sky was darkening now, stars glimmering through in pin-pricks, the moon rising. Temperature dropping and if somehow incredibly she survived her body the cold would kill her instead. Gaz laughed, and then screamed because of how awful a feeling precipitated, and then laughed again, hysterically. Blood mixed with a foam of saliva and if she had flares she'd shoot them off, not caring who or what found her, as long as there was some some some some some some END to this.

Eventually, Gaz stopped laughing, and tried to breathe again. She was losing consciousness, and letting herself, when she heard a scuffling noise and a few pebbles knocked into her side.

She closed her eyes, breathing shallowly. Then she turned as much as she could to look at what had made the noise.

A female Irken stood several feet away from her, bracing herself on between two of the larger boulders. Tallish, narrow-shouldered, scrawny, with her antennae bristling in the cool air, the alien batted her eyes at Gaz and then shifted her gaze to scan the horizon.

Gaz clenched her fingers. Turned out she wasn't ready to lie down and take anything, yet. She was trying to figure out how she could get up and kick ass when the Irken apparently decided that the area was safe enough that Gaz could be dealt with at leisure.

Lightly, the Irken hopped off her boulder, and stole closer to Gaz. Her green eyes were fixed as a cat's and it was obvious from the easy way she moved that she was fresh. Gaz didn't move until the tips of the Irken's boots pressed into her side and then she curled her lip.

"What do you want, coward," Gaz said hoarsely.

The Irken cocked her head. "Coward?" she replied. "Human, what gives you this?"

The human shivered, and her lips pulled back further, into an expression of distinctive ugliness. "A warrior wouldn't just take on enemies who were already dying."

"Human, what gives you this?" the Irken repeated, crouching now and smiling a strange smile. "You say we are enemies. Should I kill you, in that case?"

A laugh wanted to come out again. Gaz stepped hard on the impulse; she knew how much it would hurt. "If you knew who I was, you'd know you should," she said. "If you knew who I was, you'd have known not to come close."

Almost tender, that hand was, coming down on her forehead and brushing at her bangs. "Oh, how you bleed," the Irken mused. "I never saw this. I remember this. How much blood and juice you creatures have inside."

"Irken," Gaz said. "_Do you know who I am?_"

The warrior looked at her. Such strange, flat eyes, like a moss-grown pool. "I am Smidge," she said. "I am Smidge and Zim and a little bit of Dib too, the bit that Zim had, and so, of course, I know who you are."


End file.
